Hanging real loose (literally) at 77th Street

How did anyone get away with wearing these?

Ha. But I did and I got them from 77th Street.

Remember 77th Street?

Only the cool kids hung out there. As a semi-cool kid myself, I was there to see how I could level up to be a legit cool kid with those drag-inducing jeans, ill-fitting trucker caps, bicycle chains shiny chains, and friendship bracelets that smelled like a million bucks after making my wrists their home for months.

Oh and there might be a girl or two getting their ears pierced right by the cashier.

77th Street will always be the height of cool.

How I get past the passing: Still have that JUCO jeans stashed in my closet somewhere. I’m sure it’ll make a comeback one day. After all, cropped tops did.

Whiling my day(s) away at Borders

Popular and Kinos soldier on, but their comrades have fallen by the wayside.

The king of them all was Borders Bookstore at Wheelock Place.

I spent so much time wandering up and down the aisles, checking out everything from novels to magazines to CDs.

My modus operandi every Saturday? Hit the store in the morning, chope that armchair, proceed to read the entire John Grisham novel, take a break and people watch and then read again.

Its prime and convenient location also made it a popular meeting spot.

How I get past the passing: Kindle or Kino. Not quite the same but the stamina acquired from those years at Borders has trained me to handle anything.

Stuffing my face silly with free-flow bread from Cafe Cartel

When we were young, we had to choose between eating somewhere cheap, and somewhere atas.

Finding a place that was both was extremely rare. But for a short time, there was Café Cartel.

My friends might have the huge platter of ribs. I stuck to the pastas and waffle fries.

And the free-flow bread. It was the bomb.

When the restaurant closed for good, it was like saying goodbye to an old friend. Finding another place to satisfy our cravings suddenly became more urgent.

How I get past the passing: I just stay hungry.

Screaming my lungs out at S-League matches

But we weren't always going out to eat. If the weather was nice, football reigned supreme.

Any empty space became our field. School bags were piled up to make makeshift goalposts. We all made friends with the one kid who owned a real football, instead of a soft drink can.

Youngsters today who follow Manchester City or Real Madrid may not know that professional football in Singapore has a long history. Our heroes were closer to home.

Debuting in 1996, S-League started with eight teams, each with its own cute animal mascot.

The Sembawang Rangers caught my eye. Remember them? Based in Yishun and wearing a black-and-white striped jersey, fans called them "The Stallions".

They weren't the best team, but I remember cheering on players Yazid Yasin and Noh Alam Shah, who went on to represent Singapore in international games.

My friends and I would sit elbow-to-elbow with strangers, cheering every goal with huge triangle curry puffs on the left hand and flat, diluted cola that is probably prepared hours too early on the right.

It was nice witnessing an S-league match in its heyday.

How I get past the passing: I don’t. I still mourn every day.

Sending song dedications via the radio

Back home, chilling out meant listening to the radio. Before Spotify and YouTube, listening to your favourite songs was a tricky business.

If you didn't want to wait for it to come on air, you could try calling the DJ.

If you were lucky, you'd get through to Carrie Chong or Jamie Yeo. If you were even luckier, they would have the song you wanted, ready to play.

But you still needed to hold a tape recorder up to the radio to record your song so you could play it back later. A lot of effort for one song.

How I get past the passing: Radio still soldiers on, but most have shifted to streaming music via Spotify or Apple.

Attempting to connect to the Internet with a dial-up modem

These days, we can go online and download any song on our phones. But it wasn’t always so easy. The first modem many families had needed a phone land-line to work.

Speaking of which, I can still hear the screeching blips the dial-up made as it connected to the Internet, or feeling annoyed when an incoming call meant that my IRC conversation was cut short.

Everything is so seamless today, but it’s based on much more complicated tech.

Can you imagine explaining how such devices work to your younger self? Even the iPad you might use for the demonstration would seem wondrous.

What kind of gadgets will the kids of tomorrow be using? You have to keep up, or get left behind.

How I get past the passing: My first smartphone. What dial-up modem?

While the things we love have been replaced, sometimes with better alternatives, we still miss them from time to time.

Even as we reminisce the past, we should look ahead, because the future is closer than you think.

Get ready for the future here.

This sponsored post by CPF made Mothership.sg writers feel old.

Top image adapted from Home United Football Club/ Jaron Lee and AbdulKarim H AbuBakar via Facebook and Pinterest.