In my day

We have an intern at work (well, we have more interns than you can shake a stick at, if you're a stick shaking person, but that's a story for another day) who just bought a Polaroid camera--an actual Polaroid camera, that spits out ready-to-develop paper photographs. He told us that he carries it everywhere. It's almost the size of a shoebox, and looks like it weighs about five pounds.

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I'm familiar with young people's love for old technology. It seems silly to carry around a giant Polaroid camera when you can take far better pictures with even the cheapest 8-ounce smartphone, but Polaroid photography seems like a harmless-enough hobby, so who am I to judge? It keeps them off the street, as they say.

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Last year when I was in Boston, I bought a little velcro wallet made from an old museum banner at the MFA gift shop. I loved that wallet. LOVED it. It's starting to come apart, though, and so I have to replace it.  It was one of a kind, which means that I have to replace it with something else altogether, since I can't get another just like it.

I found a wallet on Amazon, which for some reason appealed to me even though it's not at all the kind of thing that I normally like, so I ordered it. And I was horrified when it arrived. In the photograph, it looked like a small, brightly patterned cordura nylon wallet with a velcro closure and cute red trim. IRL, it was a huge, bulky, Guatemalan ikat fabric monstrosity with an enormous label and unraveling thread. It looked like something you'd carry your Phish tickets in.

I read an article yesterday, criticizing Amazon for its low prices and easy, so-called free returns, and although I can see the author's point, I do love Amazon. I have no time to shop, and it's quite lovely to have things delivered to me, so that I can either keep or send them back. And now, you can return things (or pick them up) from something called the Amazon Locker, in a neighborhood location.

When I was growing up, my mom used to shop from the Montgomery-Ward catalog, which was the size of a phone book, assuming anyone even knows what a phone book is or was. M-W delivered its giant catalogs twice a year, and they came equipped with order forms that you could remove, complete in pen, and stuff into an envelope with your check or money order. A week or so later, your items would arrive at your door.

Or, you could go to your neighborhood Montgomery-Ward catalog store and pick up your box in person. The catalog store wasn't really a store, because you couldn't actually shop there. It had a counter in front, like a dry cleaner; and in the back, boxes were stored on rows of shelves, organized by last name. You could also return your purchases at the catalog store. So once again, what's old is new.

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I thought that I was reasonably well-informed on current events, but I suppose I still have some catching up to do. Because I thought that Donald Jr. was the blond one.

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My work commute is only six miles or so, all through neighborhood streets and secondary roads. It's a nice change from my old Beltway commute. There's a little neighborhood in Rockville that I drive through every day, that reminds me of my neighborhood. It's a 1960s-built Life Magazine version of an American suburban neighborhood, with alternating ranch, colonial, and Cape Cod-style houses with neat lawns and mature shade trees.

I like Rockville and Silver Spring, especially the mid-century neighborhoods that aren't quite upscale, but also not quite affluent. These are among the few truly egalitarian communities left in the Washington suburbs, where lawyers and doctors live next door to police officers and nurses, who live next door to hair stylists and electricians. OK, so not exactly the full spectrum of society, but not as polarized as the rest of this city sometimes seems to be.

And that was my social commentary for the week. Now, I'm exhausted.

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I have a long-standing aversion to ridiculous street and town names. In fact, if I were to ever inherit my dream house, but it was located in a stupid-name town, or on a ridiculously named street, I'd sell immediately.

I live in Maryland, where there are actually lots of places with beautiful and/or dignified names. Silver Spring, of course is the most beautiful town name, and that happens to be where I live. We also have Camp Springs, Bethesda, Fort Washington, Baltimore, Prince Frederick, Prince George's County, Aberdeen, Rising Sun--anyone would be happy to return address their letters from any of these places.

On the other hand, we also have more than a few towns and streets that have ridiculous or absurdly ugly names. Boonsboro, Scaggsville, Dundalk, Waldorf (it's the "dorf" sound that makes it ridiculous), Accident, Boring, and (no kidding) Crappo are all towns that must be deserted, like Centralia; only not because of raging underground fires, but because the names of those places are so awful that no one would ever want to have such an address printed on their driver's license.

Wait, what was I talking about?

Oh right! Rockville! (Another very serviceable name.)  Although I normally have a distinct bias against silly street names, I make an exception for one street name in Rockville, in the little neighborhood that I drive through every day. The street names there are made-up portmanteau words, most of which I can't remember right now, but one that amuses me to no end every time I drive past it: Miltfred Way.

Isn't that the best name? I have no idea who Milt or Fred were (or are--maybe they're still alive), but it does seem quite certain that the street is named after two men named Milt and Fred (or Milton and Frederick, I suppose).

I'm not sure who named the street after them. Maybe they were the developers of the neighborhood, and one day, after a few too many drinks, they decided to name a street after themselves. I picture two middle-aged men in Mad Men-era glasses, wearing golf clothing, and laughing uproariously at the people who would eventually have to tell other people that they just bought a house on Miltfred Way. Or maybe Milt and Fred were the fathers or grandfathers of the people who built the neighborhood, and the street was named as a tribute to them.  I have no idea; and I also have no idea why I'm so fond of this name, when I'm normally so particular about street names.  Nostalgia maybe--a reminder of a simpler time, when Polaroid cameras were cutting-edge technology, and Montgomery-Ward was still a thing. And no one knew one Trump from another, and we liked it that way.