Before the Digital Feed. We had Barns, Woods, and Fields.

Yes, before the digital feed took over our lives, we lived in a completely different world, one much more connected in many ways.

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We didn’t need an Instagram post, a Tweet, or an invite from a Facebook page. None of those things existed. We never even dreamed of the world of today.

The days of party lines, one phone per house, wall-mounted receivers with cords long enough to snake into another room for privacy — and the constant worry about long distance charges — are gone. Truth is, we talked on the phone, but that wasn’t how information really spread.

Word of mouth was enough. Somebody said a party was on at someplace like Salisbury, or down by Chicken Creek, or out off of HWY XYZ by the old painted barn. No, no GPS to get there, we knew all of these places by heart, we spent time there, they were our second homes.

Our friends, our social networks were out and about, and half the fun was discovering just where everyone was.

Getting a text?? Never heard of it. Maybe someone scribbled “keg at the woods” on a folded piece of notebook paper passed under a desk. By sundown, headlights would be crawling down gravel roads, and somehow a hundred kids would appear as if it had all been orchestrated.

Might be a band there, but most likely just someone cranking up tunes on a car stereo.

Bonfire? Most likely! There always seems to be a pile of brush or something someone needed to burn up anyway.

If not, it could just be headlights once it got really dark. (Full moon was always a plus). For sure someone would bring a makeshift barrel, bags of ice, and there would be a keg with an old school pump handle tapper. (I still have one laying around I believe).

A few people would bring some packages of good old plastic cups, and that was enough to launch a night.

Sometimes it was a barn or garage with power and a garage band hammering three chords until, for one shining minute, it clicked. Other times, genuinely talented friends turned it into a jam fest. Didn’t matter. We came to be seen, to see, to drink, to smoke a little, to make friends — or finally get close to that girl or guy we’d been circling for weeks.

Maybe get that first kiss you have been dreaming about, or working up the nerve for, for who knows how long.

Every weekend had the chance to be legendary.

Sometimes the cops showed up, headlights slicing through the dark, lights flashing. Nobody really panicked — we just scattered into the cornfields, jeans tearing on fences, boots pounding the dirt. By the next day, we were laughing about it, telling the story again as though it had been written as a footnote into the script of growing up.

We filled our nights cruising “the Ones” — back and forth through town, music blasting from cassette decks, windows rolled down. The mall was a stop on the circuit: Musicland to thumb through the latest tapes, the arcade to burn quarters, and always the chance of running into someone who had news about the next party, the next bonfire, the next place to be.

Where I grew up in the Midwest from Spring to Fall it was fair season, which might as well have been holy season. Great River Days, every county around had a Fair, the State Fairs around us, not to mention the multitude of pop carnivals that would happen.

Each one a pilgrimage. The midway lights, the smell of fried food, the chaos of rigged games and cheap rides.

Couples walked, hands clasped, while groups of friends orbited the rides, and games in little packs. You could have a great time for $20.00.

"Heading to the fair"! That was about all the announcement we would make as we left the house. We made our way there by ourselves, maybe caught a ride with someone whose parents were just dropping them off. Usually with a few bucks in hand and a "have fun" as they waved and drove off.

Back then we didn't pay extra for things to look old, nope! Same jeans for three years, frayed at the knees, faded from wear, broken in like an old saddle.

Jackets carried scars from fences, fights, and gravel — proof of life lived, not bought off a rack. Those rips, frays, tears, were earned, not bought. Hell, it was almost emotional to get rid of them, you knew the story behind every single imperfection.

We passed notes in class, not text messages. We knew which parents were cool with a basement full of smoke, and which ones weren’t.

People weren’t killing each other. Fights happened, sure — quick fists in the moment — but by the next week, (heck in the next 20 minutes) those same two guys might be standing side by side at the keg, no grudges carried.

It was a world lived slower, and sharper. No photos, no posts, no endless scroll. No feeds, no endless stream of digital noise. Just nights that burned bright in real time, leaving memories instead of data.

No, we didn't have endless information, and misinformation at our fingertips 24/7. No charging cords, no constant buzz for attention. Just us — outside, or packed into basements and barns, living IRL before that phrase even existed.

Our attention was on each other, the physical world around us. Our social networks lived and breathed and not everything was captured forever in some digital realm. Some of the sweetest memories are ones that are shared and live only in the memories of those who made them.

I still remember leaning against that old painted barn in ’83, cheap beer in hand, finally working up the nerve to kiss the girl I’d been chasing all year. No photo. No post. Just a memory that still warms me forty years later.

We loved in person, were there to hold hands, were there when someone needed comfort, were there in person through all of it, all of the emotion, the highs, the lows, the dreams, won and lost. Together.

When I go back home now, it’s clear how much the world has shifted. Sure, the digital age lets me keep tabs on friends, see their updates, skim their lives. But when I sit with them in person — laughing, sharing food, drink, and precious time — those minutes feel well spent, not wasted on the other side of the digital firewall.

A digital wall that keeps us connected peripherally, but our humanity separated.

We all have our good ole days, don't we? I will be curious to see what people say the good ole days are for the kids of today in twenty more years.

But mine? Ours? Well, they were different times, sure —slower, messier, more alive. And damn, they were good ones.

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