Sentimental Feelings Resurrected By Dolls

One of the things I love about online magazines and newspapers is that you can go through not only recent issues, but also all of the older issues (even as old as before the internet existed on some websites). A very close relative of mine writes for the New Yorker, and when I was in fourth grade I was interviewed by him for a piece he was writing on The American Girl Café in Manhattan. Yesterday my father sent me an email about an article that interested him in the New Yorker, which I didn't even end up reading because I was immediately reminded of my nine-year-old dining experience. As I was so young, I wasn't aware of what a prominent magazine I was being written about in, but now as it is online I can go back and find the article and laugh at how much more naive I was back then. I was reviewing the Cafe, which had just recently opened at the time, and as I was so young I was referred to as the "Irish Girl". Reading the article almost brought back the entire experience for me, placing me in the store going up the seemingly huge escalators, stepping into the pink and black striped penthouse restaurant with views of my favorite park, just six years later. I think that technology can have such an incredible positive affect on people, just like this did for me. Memories are very sentimental to everyone; as dull or vibrant they are, they still mean a lot and speaking for myself, I really enjoyed finding this small fragment that contributed to part of my childhood. It occurred to me that technology must have this effect on millions of people every single day. It probably does the opposite too.

All this reminiscing got me thinking about all the other ways technology can help people mentally. When I was in fifth grade, I went to New York in December (as is tradition with my mother) and instead of seeing friends, going to the Nutcracker ballet, and shopping for the entire time like we usually do, my mom took me to Ellis Island. My descendants on my mothers side are Swedish, and they emigrated to the United States in the early 20th century. My mother wanted to show me this, she wanted to prove to me that our family's history was interesting and worth learning more about. I remember the emigration hall to be huge and I felt tiny. When I went outside to look at the wall of all the emigrants who passed through Ellis Island's names I felt even smaller. The list of names was hundreds of thousands of people long, and I never ended up finding my great great grandparents names, but when we got home my mom showed me the Ellis Island website. On it you can search names of people who emigrated and their information comes up. I ended up finding my ancestors, and so much more information about them that even my mother didn't know. I remember she was so taken aback by it that she almost cried, but i was so young that I didn't understand why it meant so much to her, but now I do.