Day #350 Writing Through COVID-19: Klackers and Tape Recorders?

This afternoon, as I arrived at the YMCA for spin class, I wound my way through a cluster of sixth-graders. It was a beautiful near-spring day, 54 degrees. A few kids were masked. A few bared their noses but masked their mouths. Some wore masks under their chins. 

I almost used my teacher voice to tell them to mask up. But they were outside. And fairly distanced.  Frankly, at this exhausting point in the pandemic, I no longer know what the rules for masking are when 12-year-olds are arguing (or was it flirting?) outside the YMCA in balmy(?) weather.
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When I was 12, in 1972, the fad was Klackers. This noisy, semi-dangerous toy was soon banned when too many Klackers shattered and injured Klacking children. 

Klackers were a significant part of my life for about a year. I don't think about them often. But I remembered them tonight when I saw the kids outside the Y. Will the 12-year-olds of 2020 remember masks as "that thing we did for a year" in junior high?

I also remember from that era the early tape-recorders. Once my dad brought one home from his office. It was the size of a suitcase. It had two plate-sized reels and a tape (literally!) on which magical sound was recorded. (Tape! Record! Tape-recorder!)

Klackers dissolved into the past. Tape-recorders evolved into the future, becoming tighter, improved versions of themselves. We now press a single button on our phones, record anything, edit effortlessly, and share it anywhere. 
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Will masks go the way of Klackers? Remembered only in the recesses of the internet and Grandma's stories? Or will they stay with us, like the tape-recorders, evolving and improving and melding seamlessly into our lives?
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I thought I was going to write about cycling class tonight.

I guess I wrote about Klackers. 

Enough.
Be well.
Write.

Allison

My son Max with his son Wolf, on the job in NZ