The more things change ...

KENNETT, Mo. -- At the very moment it occurs, we often fail to recognize the historical significance when we utter what seem to be the innocuous words, "The more things change... ."

The phrase immediately classifies you as growing older and peripherally wiser, since it seems to imply that you have been blessed with the wisdom of historical perspective.

I heard myself expressing the old axiom recently, and I quickly recovered by adding the words, "...the more we notice the way things used to be."

I'm not certain there was any salvation in my feeble attempt, but at least it kept me from rummaging about in the old memory closet, giving forth with such time-worn phrases as "Kids still don't pay attention to the wise counsel of their parents" or the even more depressing "Life still doesn't get any better with age."

I used the more-things-change expression while phone-visiting with one of our children who innocently asked, "Did this happen to you when you were a kid?" Confidently, I answered "Sure," only to be confronted with "I don't know, I look at old pictures, like you and Mom posing in the yard after Easter Sunday service, and it looks like things were different then."

Nothing has been the same since the phone company turned "information" into "directory assistance." Since you weren't allowed to burn the leaves in the fall anymore. Since the druggist moved the condoms up front with the vitamins. Or since the local drug store served the best tuna salad in town.

Yes, all of this and more, has changed. But the feeling of being alive in America hasn't been the same:

Since bumper stickers.

Since pantyhose.

Since the sun became our enemy, blighting us with wrinkles and cancer and since the ultraviolet radiation count is as important as the temperature and humidity.

When I was a kid, Nature was our friend. Like in Walt Disney cartoons: If you got lost in the woods, bluebirds would bring your lunch in a little basket. Now nature is our enemy. We annoyed it, and now it will drown us or dry us up.

Since tennis balls changed from white to yellow.

Since the Japanese bought Rockefeller Center.

Since women stopped wearing gloves.

And dentists started using them.

Since stuff in stores got either shrink-wrapped or blister-packaged, making it unreal and untouchable.

Since Detroit took away wing windows and hood ornaments.

Mind you, none of this is necessarily bad or good, just changed.

And these too have changed:

Since women took off their girdles in the 1960s.

Since your college roommate, after three failed marriages, went to live in Italy.

Since we started importing Granny Smith apples from France because here in the land of Johnny Appleseed our own had no taste.

Since we learned there wasn't any Lassie doing all those tricks but a pack of male collies that each knew a couple of tricks.

Since you noticed that the Lone Ranger and Tonto always rode around the same rock so they were probably indoors.

Since popular music was made out of modular units.

Since professional athletes were paid more for one game than many of their spectators earned in a year.

Since men started crying because women said they liked it -- except they really didn't.

Since stores were allowed to open seven days a week and Sundays no longer had the radiant quiet that was another category of reality -- except maybe in small towns where those more fortunate are still permitted to live.

Since we stopped thinking about how many Americans died in World War II and started worrying about how many could die from a terrorist attack.

Since jogging. When I was a kid people didn't exercise at all. If you jogged, people would have pulled the curtains and talked about you.

Since steak stopped being good for you.

Since aluminum baseball bats.

Since men stopped whistling songs on the streets.

Since everybody had to have helmets for bicycles, motorcycles, skiing, hockey, construction work, SWAT teams. What's next: helmets for golf and hockey audiences?

Since "victim" and "hero" became the same thing.

Since politicians started transforming our lives from being participants to being followers, when political parties became more important than any other kind of activity with the exception of campaign-contribution gatherings.

For some selfish reason, you hope your children will understand why you reacted in a way that today may seem to be surprising, even off-the-wall. Times were different then, you reason to yourself, and maybe your kids will show some tolerance even when you didn't.

Maybe your feelings will be part of an era your kid will remember at the very moment of realizing it's gone.

Realizing, too, that things haven't been the same since -- well, since we started noticing the way things used to be.

Jack Stapleton is the editor of Missouri News & Editorial Service.