Check It Out: Take a look in my rear view mirror

By Joan Janzen

The cartoon showed a woman saying to her husband, “You don’t look anything like the long-haired, skinny kid I married twenty-five years ago. I need a DNA sample to make sure it’s still you.”

This week I took a look back in time as I leafed through some newspaper archives, and I stumbled across one of the first ‘Check It Out’ articles I wrote. Believe it or not, I started writing this missive twenty-five years ago (yeah, I know, I’m dating myself). But after twenty-five years, it doesn’t look anything like it used to, and it may even require a DNA sample to ensure it’s written by the same person.

Just for reference’s sake, twenty-five years is equivalent to 1,300 articles and about 975,000 words. It’s hard to believe I found something to write about for a quarter of a century.

So on the anniversary of this milestone, I’m going to share the column I found from twenty-five years ago. Back then I penned a light-hearted commentary about everyday events, so I invite you to take a look in my rear view mirror, going back twenty-five years in time. Here it is …

We all have fond memories of celebrating Christmas when we were little kids. At our house there was always a ‘real’ tree; none of the plastic kind for us. Even if we got to town late and ended up with the ugliest tree on earth, the awesome smell of sweet pine was compensation enough for even the most Charlie Brown-like tree. (Does anyone still remember Charlie Brown in 2025?)

The grand finale was the throwing on of Christmas ornaments. There were no colour-coordinated decorations for any tree I ever decorated, but that’s what made it fun. Every ornament was totally unique, and somehow the tree always appeared to be a thing of beauty to our child-sized eyes.

The gifts I remember the best were from my oldest sister. My eight-year-old brain could never quite get over my sister becoming a teacher. As her little sister, I was totally unaware that she even ‘liked’ little kids. Anyway, she did become a teacher and was miraculously transformed into this kid-loving person who began buying me the most awesome Christmas gifts. Those gifts would keep me busy glueing, painting, and making all kinds of creations for days.

When I was eight years old, my sister taught kids the same age as myself. At Christmas time, she asked me to write her class a letter, and I received twenty-five letters in return. It was a great exchange, I thought. It didn’t take me long to realize city kids know absolutely nothing about farm life, so I did my best to educate them. I went into great detail describing the slaughtering of hogs, cows, cutting off of chicken heads, and feeding intestines to my cats. It was at this point in my life that I realized I enjoyed writing.

That was the same Christmas my teacher just casually mentioned her false teeth prevented her from eating sticky or chewy candy. Somehow word got around, and guess what she got a whole lot of for Christmas that year? Yeah, it was a shame she couldn’t eat all those chewy chocolates and had to share them with her dear students.

When I was a pre-schooler, my three sisters and I would join together and buy a group gift for the folks. Quite often, my sisters wouldn’t even tell me what they had purchased because I had a great deal of difficulty keeping a secret. I’ve now outgrown that little problem—honest!

Being that I was the youngest and had the least amount of disposable income, I contributed the least amount of cash for the gift. My only source of revenue at the time was the tooth fairy, and a kid can only lose so many teeth. I couldn’t help but notice that the going rate for teeth increased considerably the closer it got to Christmas.

Finally, Christmas Eve would arrive. We would always open gifts late Christmas Eve night, but first we attended a Christmas Eve church service. That church service was always an excellent time to get rested up for the upcoming gift opening.

I ended the article by inviting readers to tell me about their “Christmas as a kid” experiences. So you can see my “Check It Out” articles have changed a great deal in the past twenty-five years, and so has the world around us.

Nevertheless, life continues as I write my 1,301st missive, and I am continually amazed and grateful for those who take the time to “Check It Out.”