Here Are Some Amazing Things From The Past That Need To Return From The Dead

It's Wednesday, which means it's time for the column with more complaints than the comment section of the trailer for the new live-action Moana movie, The Gripe Report!

So, to set up what I want to talk about, I'm going to give you a small peek behind the curtain into stately Reigle Manor (AKA, my rented townhome).

When my wife, the lady of the manor, and I lie down in bed, we both have routines.

Have a gripe? Send it in!: matthew.reigle@outkick.com

I usually lie down, put on my Bluetooth sleeping mask, and cue up SiriusXM's Radio Classics channel (Shout out to the OG, Greg Bell), which plays radio shows from the Golden Age of Radio.

Dragnet, Gunsmoke, The Jack Benny Show, The Green Hornet, Frontier Gentleman, and, my personal favorite, Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar, which follows the exploits of the nation's premier freelance insurance investigator.

I'm not making any of that up.

Meanwhile, my wife goes to YouTube on our bedroom TV and throws on compilations of old commercials from the ‘90s and early ’00s.

I like to watch these too, and I'm fascinated by how much better life seemed, not just in the ‘90s and ’00s. Sure, maybe it's a "the grass is always greener" situation, but I don't think that's the case.

So, I wanted to pull out a few things from the past that, if they made a return, would make all of our lives much, much better.

Drink it in, kids. This may have been when society peaked.  (Photo credit should read ROBERT SULLIVAN/AFP via Getty Images)

Video Stores

It’s crazy that I haven’t been in a Blockbuster in probably close to 20 years, and yet right now I can close my eyes and smell that one that was a couple of blocks away from my house.

I mean, we all understand the nostalgic value of video stores, but I don’t think we fully remember how big a part of our lives they were.

Going in, perusing the aisles, picking your movies for the next couple of days, and then letting the burnout stoner behind the counter tell us why George Lucas is dead to him after the 1996 re-release of the original trilogy.

It was magic.

I even miss the parts about video stores that weren’t fun. Like how returning videos was an extra errand you had to run, or how it felt to get video cucked when you saw a movie you wanted, only for it to not have a copy behind it.

I think what I miss most is that the video store was one of those stores you’d go into just to see what was new. I don’t really feel like there’s much like that anymore. You usually go in knowing what you’re looking for, you buy it, then leave.

From a technological standpoint, we don’t really need video stores, but I do think we could use more stores where you just go in and have a look around while you’re out and about.

It's kind of weird seeing a train that probably doesn't smell a little like pee, isn't it. (Getty Images)

Trains (And I Mean Good Ones)

When I was a kid, my family used to take the Amtrak Autotrain from Lorton, Virginia, to Sanford, Florida, anytime we traveled to the Sunshine State.

It wasn’t the fastest way to travel, but it wasn’t bad, and that has always made me wonder why we can’t get better trains?

If you watch old movies or read about the past, train travel used to kick so much ass.

If I could post up in a Pullman coach with a glass of whiskey and a cigar for a cross-country ride, I would absolutely do that right now. Just tell me where to go.

But now, trains have kind of become a step above Greyhound buses, and often smell a little bit like them, too.

What’s even worse about trains now is that they’re ridiculously expensive.

I wanted to take my wife on the aforementioned Autotrain so that I could show her something that was a pretty big part of my childhood.

Sure, it would take a two-and-a-half hour drive from Virginia after we spent 18 to 20 hours on the train to get back to where I grew up in Pennsylvania, as opposed to a 2-hour flight. But it was the experience I was after.

Riding the rails, eating very average food, sharing bathrooms with strangers… wait. Why did I want to do this?!

Nonetheless, I looked up tickets and taking the train costs several times more than flying and takes about ten times as much time.

Let’s bring back nice, clean, classy trains that aren’t going to put you in the poorhouse.

Is that too much to ask?

Shame

People forget that shame is a useful tool.

I’m so sick of people whining about being shamed instead of using it as a motivating factor.

Tired of being "fat-shamed?" Hit the gym.

Tired of people "parent-shaming" you when your kids act up in public? Control your hellions.

I know what I speak… 

I was a picky eater when I was a kid, well into elementary school. Do you know what cured me? It was the shame that came with the weirdest, grossest kid in my class making fun of me for my picky-eater meal of peanut butter crackers, fruit snacks, and a Little Debbie Cosmic Brownie.

Which sounds awesome, by the way…

But he made fun of me in front of everyone, and I was so ashamed that I started trying foods.

I got over my pickiness entirely. Heck, in the last week alone, I was wolfing down charred octopus and goat cheese croquettes.

I’m not sure if that would’ve happened had it not been for the shaming, so, instead of complaining about shame, use it.

I’d like to thank that kid for actually helping me out, but there’s a pretty good chance he’s dead or in jail.

Paper Tickets

I will concede that this modern era, in which we have digital tickets on our phones, is very convenient, but, damn, I miss the days of physical, paper tickets.

For starters, they were free souvenirs. My uncle has a binder that he keeps all of his concert ticket stubs in, and it was pretty cool to flip through it and look at the different shows.

Kind of hard to do that, unless you want to flick around the Ticket Master app for a bit, and I can assure you, you don’t.

Also, it’s so much harder to forget tickets when they’re on your phone. That's good, but I miss the days of hounding the person with the tickets over and over again to make sure that they did, in fact, have the tickets.

There was just something about the prospect of leaving the envelope of tickets stuck to the fridge or in your glove box that was just downright exhilarating.

Of course, some events will still give you a paper ticket… if’n you’re willin’ to pay.

*Spits in spitoon*

Because now a commemorative paper ticket is an add-on.

Just like parking and everything else.

I know it's all about touchscreens these days, but we all know that knobs were, and will always be, much better. (Getty Images)

Cars With Physical Knobs

A couple of months ago, I decided it was time to get something a little bigger than my trusty Kia Forte and traded it in for a Ford Bronco Sport.

I like everything about this car, minus one thing (alright, two things: there’s a speck of paint mark on the rear bumper, and it drives me f–king insane): the lack of physical knobs.

So, my new car, like most new cars, has a nice big infotainment screen, which is great, but all of the controls for the air conditioning live on that screen.

Some people like this. I am not one of those people.

It’s not just the tactile nature of the knob; it’s that knobs are infinitely safer to use.

In my Kia, I could change the air without shifting my gaze away from the road. I would just flip through the dials with one hand because I knew exactly where they were based on touch.

Now? When I reach for the AC, all I feel is the screen, which feels just like the rest of the screen.

You can’t operate a touchscreen (ironically) by touch. You have to be looking at it, which isn’t ideal when you’re supposed to have your eyes on the road.

This move away from knobs and buttons is, of all the things we’ve talked about so far, the one most likely to come back. I think it already is, if I’m being honest.

Infotainment systems are still flashy and exciting, but at some point soon, everyone will get what I’m saying, and they’ll be like, "Holy hell, yeah, Matt — you handsome sumbitch — you were right, this is needlessly dangerous."

Not Knowing Stuff

I was recently playing a re-release of a video game I played as a kid.

It was a nice mainline dose of the sweet, sweet drug that is nostalgia, but it wasn’t as fun as when I was a kid.

I realized why: when I was a kid, if I got stuck, I couldn’t just look up how to progress the way I can as an adult.

That was so much better.

This isn’t exclusive to video games. Life was better when there was simply stuff you didn’t know.

It’s virtually impossible not to know stuff because you have access to just about every piece of knowledge ever recorded right in your pocket.

Sure, that’s useful, but it’s a curse too. Anytime you wonder about something, you whip your phone out and search for it. You get your answer, but then you wonder about something else, so you look for that, and so on.

That’s how you go down a rabbit hole.

I’ve recently tried to embrace the idea of simply not knowing stuff. I don’t mean you shouldn’t try to learn useful, important things, but there’s so much information being blasted right in our stupid faces, we should probably tune some out.

So, the next time you don’t know something, and it’s not a matter of life and death or won’t help you personally or professionally, just shrug and move on.

…

That's it for this edition of The Gripe Report, ladies and germs!

Be sure to send in any gripes or things from the past you want to see make a comeback: matthew.reigle@outkick.com