Whatever Happened To... by Barbara (Ruth)

Just some random things I was wondering about recently - whatever happened to:

1. Evanescence? They've been around in one form or another since 1995, and had their big break in 2003 when they provided two tracks for the movie "Daredevil" (baaaad movie). 2003 was a time of heartache and angst for me. I still remember day after day going for a run, listening to "Bring Me to Life" and hanging on lyrics such as "now that I know what I'm without, you can't just leave me..." as if I were a lovesick teenager. Amy Lee was killing me softly with her song!
2. Kelly Gruber? Oh come on, you know who he is if you follow baseball at all. He was a big part of the 1992 World Series win for the Blue Jays. He hit for the cycle in 1989, won the gold glove in 1990, and was named Toronto's most eligible bachelor at one point. I used to love watching him at 3rd, and was devastated when he was traded in 1993. Rumour has it that he had a downward slide into drugs after he was traded to the Angels, but my research says he had surgery for a bone spur that ended his career. That's a pretty quick ending.
3. Real dinner parties? You know, the kind our parents had when people dressed up and came over without bringing a salad or a dessert. Everyone sat at the dinner table and used the good china and the silver. This was before "kitchen parties" and "BYOB". My Mom wore pearls, and I had to go in and say goodnight to the guests before I went to bed, and then I went to sit at the top of the stairs to listen to see if they said anything about me. Nowadays, it's insulting to go to a dinner party without taking something along. Frankly, I like doing the whole thing myself! (Perhaps that's a control issue...)
4. Unstructured play? I remember coming home from school, doing my homework, and waiting for the inevitable doorbell and "can Ruth come out to play?" My street was long and straight - perfect for games of kickball (or soccer baseball, to Canadians). We had a forest behind us in which we built numerous forts and treehouses. There was a stream for catching frogs and salamanders, and everyone's parents were home so we could end up at someone's house for a cold drink. We knew to go home when the lights came on (or when I heard my Dad's whistle - yes, we really had a family whistle!). Nowadays kids have such structured lives. I feel sad for what they're missing. Silken Laumann, Canadian rower and Olympian, wrote a book called "Child's Play" - I love the concept!
5. Bridge? My folks played bridge All. The. Time. My oldest sister and her husband still play on occasion, and I learned to play a long time ago but was never really very good at it. I still know how to bid and the essence of how to play, but I guess I'm not very strategic at games (I can't play chess, either). I think Euchre has taken over from bridge, but it seems so uncultured to me! Bridge was about card tables set in the living room, ashtrays, punch bowls, bridge mix, and Nuts & Bolts. Euchre is a loud game involving beer and wings and shouting BOO-YA!
6. Manners? I am sorry, but I think manners by the public in general have just gone to the dogs. Yesterday I bought a $185 worth of groceries, and the entire time the cashier didn't look at me or speak to me. And it's not just about customer service - people are generally ruder than they were a long time ago. It may be a generalization, but I find that most people don't hold doors for each other, men don't allow women to enter a door or an elevator first, people don't say "excuse me", and thank yous are few and far between. And don't even get me started on table manners.
7. Grammar? Ever read "Eats, Shoots, and Leaves?" No? You should. This book is about "zero tolerance for punctuation", and is a hilarious look at the forgotten comma and the overused apostrophe. Last year I saw a sign at Home Depot advertising "Red Rose's". I was thisclose to fixing it with a marker then and there. And if I make the mistake myself, I'm just mortified. Here's the joke that inspired the title of the book: A panda walks into a café. He orders a sandwich, eats it, then draws a gun and proceeds to fire it at the other patrons. 'Why?' asks the confused, surviving waiter amidst the carnage, as the panda makes towards the exit. The panda produces a badly punctuated wildlife manual and tosses it over his shoulder. 'Well, I'm a panda,' he says, at the door. 'Look it up.' The waiter turns to the relevant entry in the manual and, sure enough, finds an explanation. 'Panda. Large black-and-white bear-like mammal, native to China. Eats, shoots and leaves.'

I could go on, but I won't. (For instance: Velveeta? Girl Guide uniforms? Parker Stevenson?)  Let me know if you have any "whatever happend to" thoughts. Maybe you can be a guest blogger!