Pinned to the Wall

Do you remember life before the internet?

I don’t know if any of you are involved with Pinterest the way I am, but there isn’t a day that goes by where I’m not clicking, scrolling, saving, or searching for dinner ideas I’ll probably never actually make. For me, it’s the world’s biggest rabbit hole. One minute I’m looking for a chicken recipe and forty-five minutes later I’m emotionally invested in a woman restoring a farmhouse in Idaho while organizing her pantry in matching glass jars.

But Pinterest reminded me exactly how I should answer today’s prompt.

Today, Pinterest exists with flash messages, recipes, advertisements, and perfectly curated outfits worn by people who somehow never spill coffee on themselves. You can “pin” your likes to boards and pages you create. It’s basically a virtual vision board.

“Back in the day” — and you all know how much I love that phrase — my vision board was very real and very oversized. It lived on the wall of my bedroom at 36 Grant Avenue. I covered a giant corkboard with magazine cutouts attached by brightly colored pushpins. I cut out letters from magazines like I was preparing a kidnapper’s ransom note just to label sections of the board. There were concert ticket stubs, wrinkled boarding passes from family vacations, doodles born out of boredom during math class, dance wristbands, and newspaper clippings featuring my Kickline performances or Track Team racewalking results.

My entire life — and the life I hoped to create — lived on that board.

It hung above my prized stereo system, which took up nearly as much emotional real estate as the corkboard itself. I never wanted a Sweet 16 party, so my parents bought me a stereo setup instead. Best decision ever. I could disappear into music for hours while lying on the shag carpeting in my room or French braiding my hair before school each morning. That stereo was therapy before we called things therapy.

The stereo and my portable transistor radio also doubled as my pre-internet mix tape headquarters. I was an absolute professional at recording songs off the radio. I knew every DJ’s rhythm and signature lines. I could sense the exact second they were about to “hit the post” and stop talking right before the lyrics started. That was my cue to slam down the record button.

Young friends, this was our playlist creation process. This was iTunes before Apple even knew what iTunes was.

And then there was the view from my parents’ bedroom window overlooking the block. That was my social media feed. We had thirteen kids living on our block and from around 7:30 in the morning until well after dark, somebody was outside. Bikes were scattered across lawns. Kickball games erupted without warning. Somebody was always crying over something dramatic and life-altering like who slept over whose house the night before.

There was early girl drama long before group chats existed. Who slept at Mary’s house without inviting me? Why were Debbie and Kathy sleeping at my house while Mary and Peggy were left out? Every day brought a new emotional scandal worthy of a daytime soap opera.

Honestly, it was Facebook before the World Wide Web.

Painful as those years sometimes felt, I can say with complete certainty that I probably would not have survived my later high school years had social media existed the way it does today. There. I said it. Living inside the small protective bubble of my little neighborhood gave me room to grow up quietly. Mistakes disappeared by the next morning instead of living forever online. Embarrassing moments weren’t recorded, reposted, analyzed, and commented on by strangers.

We lived our lives in real time, not highlight reels.

And for that, I’m deeply grateful.

There’s something beautiful about having memories that only exist in stories, ticket stubs, faded photographs, and corkboards covered with dreams. Nothing was curated back then. We were just kids trying to figure ourselves out one mix tape, one sleepover, and one pushpin at a time. Maybe that’s why those memories still feel so alive to me. They weren’t created for an audience. They were simply lived.

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Author: KikiFikar

Kiki Fikar is a native New Yorker who is passionate about taking the day to day life we all experience and sharing it in her tales from Suburbia. She will often be found at the gym, writing snippets each day for future story lines, listening to her two children create their lives, and building the perfect beachfront home and writing retreat in her mind.

41 thoughts on “Pinned to the Wall”

      2. Ah — you mean the old Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) computer community and message-board culture, not a financial marketplace.

        The DEC “notes” and message-board ecosystem was actually one of the earliest large-scale technical community networks, long before modern internet forums, Reddit, or Stack Overflow.

        The Origins of DEC Community Culture

        Digital Equipment Corporation was one of the most influential computer companies of the 1960s–1990s. They created the PDP and VAX systems that powered universities, labs, engineering firms, and government systems worldwide.

        Because DEC systems were heavily used in academic and engineering environments, users naturally formed one of the earliest technical “online communities.”

        DECUS — The Original DEC User Network

        The heart of this ecosystem was DECUS (Digital Equipment Computer Users Society).

        DECUS began in the 1960s as a formal user organization where:

        * programmers exchanged software
        * engineers traded fixes and patches
        * administrators shared technical “notes”
        * users posted problem-solving discussions
        * conference proceedings and newsletters circulated globally

        In many ways, DECUS functioned like:

        * Reddit
        * GitHub
        * Stack Overflow
        * Usenet
        * and a software marketplace

        —all decades before those existed.

        What “DEC Notes” Actually Were

        “Notes” usually referred to:

        * internal discussion systems
        * threaded technical conversations
        * software documentation exchanges
        * troubleshooting databases

        The best-known system was VAX Notes or simply Notes.

        It was a discussion-board application that ran on VMS systems and became hugely popular inside corporations, universities, and among DEC users.

        Features included:

        * threaded conversations
        * topic hierarchies
        * multi-user discussions
        * remote participation
        * searchable technical archives

        This was remarkably advanced for the late 1970s and 1980s.

        Modern forum structures owe a surprising amount to systems like DEC Notes.

        The Marketplace Aspect

        When people refer to the “DEC Notes marketplace,” they often mean the informal exchange economy around:

        * DEC software
        * utilities
        * patches
        * user-written tools
        * documentation
        * tapes/disks
        * consulting expertise

        At DECUS symposiums and online systems:

        * users traded code
        * shared freeware
        * sold utilities
        * exchanged operating-system enhancements

        It created one of the first real technical software-sharing ecosystems outside universities and government labs.

        Much of this culture later influenced:

        * open-source software communities
        * Unix collaboration culture
        * early internet technical forums

        Why DEC Communities Were Special

        DEC users were famously loyal and technically elite.

        The community developed around:

        * PDP-8
        * PDP-11
        * VAX
        * Alpha systems
        * OpenVMS

        Many former DEC engineers still describe the company almost like a “technical civilization” rather than merely a corporation.

        DEC culture emphasized:

        * engineering over marketing
        * peer expertise
        * distributed computing
        * user collaboration

        That culture translated directly into their online discussion systems.

        Decline

        DEC struggled during the PC revolution of the late 1980s and 1990s:

        * IBM PCs commoditized computing
        * Unix and Windows ecosystems exploded
        * DEC’s expensive proprietary systems lost market share

        Compaq acquired DEC in 1998, and later Hewlett-Packard absorbed Compaq.

        But pieces of the culture survived:

        * OpenVMS communities
        * vintage computing forums
        * DECUS successor organizations
        * archival mailing lists
        * emulator communities

        There are still enthusiasts preserving PDP and VAX systems today.

        Historical Importance

        DEC Notes and DECUS are historically important because they helped pioneer:

        * threaded online discussion systems
        * distributed technical collaboration
        * software-sharing communities
        * remote engineering support
        * early networked communication culture

        In a very real sense, they were ancestors of today’s forums, developer communities, and even social platforms.

        Like

  2. Ah — you mean the old Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) computer community and message-board culture, not a financial marketplace.

    The DEC “notes” and message-board ecosystem was actually one of the earliest large-scale technical community networks, long before modern internet forums, Reddit, or Stack Overflow.

    The Origins of DEC Community Culture

    Digital Equipment Corporation was one of the most influential computer companies of the 1960s–1990s. They created the PDP and VAX systems that powered universities, labs, engineering firms, and government systems worldwide.

    Because DEC systems were heavily used in academic and engineering environments, users naturally formed one of the earliest technical “online communities.”

    DECUS — The Original DEC User Network

    The heart of this ecosystem was DECUS (Digital Equipment Computer Users Society).

    DECUS began in the 1960s as a formal user organization where:

    * programmers exchanged software
    * engineers traded fixes and patches
    * administrators shared technical “notes”
    * users posted problem-solving discussions
    * conference proceedings and newsletters circulated globally

    In many ways, DECUS functioned like:

    * Reddit
    * GitHub
    * Stack Overflow
    * Usenet
    * and a software marketplace

    —all decades before those existed.

    What “DEC Notes” Actually Were

    “Notes” usually referred to:

    * internal discussion systems
    * threaded technical conversations
    * software documentation exchanges
    * troubleshooting databases

    The best-known system was VAX Notes or simply Notes.

    It was a discussion-board application that ran on VMS systems and became hugely popular inside corporations, universities, and among DEC users.

    Features included:

    * threaded conversations
    * topic hierarchies
    * multi-user discussions
    * remote participation
    * searchable technical archives

    This was remarkably advanced for the late 1970s and 1980s.

    Modern forum structures owe a surprising amount to systems like DEC Notes.

    The Marketplace Aspect

    When people refer to the “DEC Notes marketplace,” they often mean the informal exchange economy around:

    * DEC software
    * utilities
    * patches
    * user-written tools
    * documentation
    * tapes/disks
    * consulting expertise

    At DECUS symposiums and online systems:

    * users traded code
    * shared freeware
    * sold utilities
    * exchanged operating-system enhancements

    It created one of the first real technical software-sharing ecosystems outside universities and government labs.

    Much of this culture later influenced:

    * open-source software communities
    * Unix collaboration culture
    * early internet technical forums

    Why DEC Communities Were Special

    DEC users were famously loyal and technically elite.

    The community developed around:

    * PDP-8
    * PDP-11
    * VAX
    * Alpha systems
    * OpenVMS

    Many former DEC engineers still describe the company almost like a “technical civilization” rather than merely a corporation.

    DEC culture emphasized:

    * engineering over marketing
    * peer expertise
    * distributed computing
    * user collaboration

    That culture translated directly into their online discussion systems.

    Decline

    DEC struggled during the PC revolution of the late 1980s and 1990s:

    * IBM PCs commoditized computing
    * Unix and Windows ecosystems exploded
    * DEC’s expensive proprietary systems lost market share

    Compaq acquired DEC in 1998, and later Hewlett-Packard absorbed Compaq.

    But pieces of the culture survived:

    * OpenVMS communities
    * vintage computing forums
    * DECUS successor organizations
    * archival mailing lists
    * emulator communities

    There are still enthusiasts preserving PDP and VAX systems today.

    Historical Importance

    DEC Notes and DECUS are historically important because they helped pioneer:

    * threaded online discussion systems
    * distributed technical collaboration
    * software-sharing communities
    * remote engineering support
    * early networked communication culture

    In a very real sense, they were ancestors of today’s forums, developer communities, and even social platforms.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  4. Lol, so many images just flashed through my mind of life back then, which is 💯 accurate. I used to love cutting out pictures and hanging them on the walls…remember Teen Beat and 16 Magazine? Who was on your wall? Mine was Kirk Cameron and Jason Batemen and Duran Duran, among others, lol

    Liked by 3 people

    Reply

  5. Amen to all of this! In my case, it was scrapbooks rather than a board, essentially the same thing. Not the perfect scrapbooks that make you feel as if you have to buy out the craft store. Pictures from the newspaper, theater programs, *real stuff.* I used to be an absolute Pinterest junkie, but it’s just too curated these days. I see as many ads as I do pins, it seems. And I really ought to consult those recipe boards I created more often 😃

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

  7. i loved reading this Karen 🙂 it was a little trip down my own memory lane. you are a fantastic writer.

    that being said…I am THANKFUL that smartphones with cameras did not exist in the late 90’s and very early 2000’s right when i was a senior in high school and a freshly minted college grad. whew! LOL ;D

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  8. I agree. I feel a little sorry for kids now. Not that everything was so wonderful “back in the day.” But like you said, our mistakes were not shared online. But each generation is different, and I am pretty the “kids” today will someday be writing nostalgic tales about their era. Or at least, I hope so.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    1. Exactly Diana. I hope they make their own way and share their tales. Everyone deserves a chance to shine and stand in their own light.

      Hope you are having a great week so far!

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

  9. Great post, Karen, and it’s funny because a few days ago I had a realisation. After years of feeling sorry for kids and, I have to admit, criticising them for sitting in their rooms on Call of Duty etc, FB etc. Whereas we used to actually go out and meet friends. I realised we had no choice, there was nothing to do in the house 😂

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    1. Well that’s just it. We left the house after breakfast and came in for dinner. We made up things to do. Scavenger hunts. Bike road races. Tag. Played house. Inventive things that required brain power and talking to each other!!

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

  11. I love this post, and your line that, “Mistakes disappeared by the next morning instead of living forever online,” is so good. Well, sometimes you needed to wait until people graduated from high school, but I know what you mean.

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

  12. “Living inside the small protective bubble of my little neighborhood gave me room to grow up quietly.” This line stopped me. It’s the one element or ingredient that’s missing in a world of maddening and, at times, crippling connectivity.

    I, too, had a corkboard, but mine was littered with newspaper clippings of Mike Schmidt and Julius Erving. And, in my bedroom, I also had that early-70s decor debacle known as the “shag carpet.” Great piece, Kiki!

    Like

    Reply

  13. This takes me back. Love your description of trying to record from the radio. My pet peeve were the DJs who had the “psyche” intro. You thought they were done talking, you’d click record, but they were still talking. Ugh. Killers! Hated that. Ha ha.

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

  14. This really hits a nerve in a quiet way. Life felt slower then, but also more real in a way that’s hard to explain without missing it. There’s something about memories that only lived in the moment that still feels more solid than anything we scroll past today.

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

    1. I still feel this way. I miss those moments because they were real and you kept them in your mind as opposed to storing them on your phone. I don’t even know what I’m saying, but I think you understand.

      Liked by 2 people

      Reply

      1. Yes… I know exactly what you are saying. When people truly enjoyed living. When neighbors actually talked to one another. When people actually visited each other and hung out. When kids ran the streets and played hop-scotch, 1,2,3 red light, hide-and-seek. When we would make phone calls and talk to family and friends for hours. When we went to the record shop and bought vinyl records and ran home to play them on our turn tables – Oh wait, I still do that 😂 🤣 😆… I get it… I miss Back When…

        Liked by 2 people

      3. Right? Oh yes… the letters.

        And let’s not forget the old-school texting before cell phones took over.

        Writing a note in class and carefully sliding it back to your friend without getting caught by the teacher. Trying to act innocent while secretly watching to see if they got it.

        Then the worst happened.

        The teacher spotted it.

        She walked over, took the note, opened it, and read it out loud in front of the entire class while everyone laughed.

        “I like you. Do you like me?”

        ☐ Yes

        ☐ No

        Suddenly, you wished the floor would open up and swallow you whole. 😂

        Liked by 1 person

  16. Kiki, what a fun trip down memory lane! David Cassidy and Leif Garrett, lol… my friend’s sister also idolized them and didn’t appreciate us erasing their eyes and making them cross-eyed with those stinky markers…the short, squat ones with the top that squeaked when you removed it. Such a good point about things thankfully dying in a week or two vs nowadays… and the whole bit about everything happening at a comfortable speed… amen to that… turning once again to Professor Buffett… (“Boat Drinks”🍹)

    I gotta go
    Where the pace of life’s slow
    Can you beam me somewhere
    Mr Scott?

    Take me there, Calgon! 😂

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    1. Ahhhh you have me snurgling again. We should really campaign to make this a real word as it happens often enough.

      The markers were a permanent change artist. That marker was also an early AI feature in that you could simply erase someone from a picture simply by blacking them out as if they never existed. Pay no attention to the prom date or black inked blob next to me.

      Thank you for reminding me more of the good old days and more JB. 😊

      Like

      Reply

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