Lost Skills of Gen X: What We Knew Before Everything Worked

Before smartphones, cloud backups, and algorithmic everything, there was a generation that learned to navigate life with rotary phones, mixtapes, hand-written directions, and the instinctive ability to fix nearly anything with patience and a Phillips head screwdriver.

In Lost Skills of Gen X, Lance Pettit resurrects these fast-fading abilities with humor, warmth, and documentary clarity. Part cultural time capsule, part practical manual, the book catalogs the everyday mastery of a generation raised on dial-up tones, Saturday-morning chores, and the subtle art of knowing exactly when to smack the TV to fix the picture.

Blending sharp observation with laugh-out-loud storytelling, Pettit captures not just the techniques themselves, but the ethos behind them-self-reliance, improvisation, and a stubborn refusal to read the instructions. More than nostalgia, this is a field guide to the analog resilience that once defined millions.

Thoughtful, charming, and unexpectedly instructive, Lost Skills of Gen X is both a tribute and a transmission-an invitation to pass down the skills, stories, and scrappy wisdom that shouldn't be forgotten.