It's A Different World

We often carelessly kick around the fact that life today has changed a lot, like since the '50's, as far back as this comment is going to (or I care to) go. Ponderance in general can be good, but I think a more concrete pinning with specific examples better serves to illustrate our point today. What kind specific examples might I be talking with reference to, you the reader of this specific post might query me? To show you, let's hop into the Time Cruiser, an admittedly non-scientific and very probably un-buildable "Gee Whiz" doodad that can exist and be used in my blog (have you never heard of films and the term "suspended disbelief?) So please, play along. We are now in it (the Time Cruiser) and of course, cruising along. There are some things that might become apparent to us. Can you believe that children growing up today have never known (depending on their age) a world without the internet? Or color tv? Or tv in general (now that even includes me)? No cell phones to keep you in constant contact. Cable or Dish tv? (I know, rub your two fingers together and tell me it's the world's smallest violin that's playing) but I remember growing up with only two tv stations availalable, NBC and ABC (they had to ask for donations to build a "repeater" to even get ABC to us, so I missed out on all those hits from CBS...Ed Sullivan, Carol Burnett, Captain Kangaroo, etc. The only time I was blessed with viewing them was when we visited my grandma Egger in Lincoln, Ne. which seemed like a metropolis. Problem was, her tv set ((remember only one tv in the house, which, gasp, had no remote? Of course, with only 3 or 4 channels to pick from, how big a deal was it to remove yourself from the Lazy Boy (still no commercial reimbursement) and switch channels?)) was in her bedroom. No big deal you say. Well it wouldn't be except for the fact that me and my brother were found to be allergic to cats, and that's where the old tomboy or tomgirl cat would relax, right on the bedspread where we layed to watch good 'ole CBS. We wondered why we always got choked up, and red and teary eyed, and wheezy when we went to grandma's house (we liked her, but she didn't affect us that much) until we realized it went away when we went outside her house, and finally figured out it was the cat. Only one phone in the house? Which was corded and not portable. Really no way to listen to mobile music on foot ( I can't think of any). No video recording of tv for later viewing? No movie rental or sales? I was so infatuated with the movie "American Graffiti" having watched it literally tens of times in the theatre wherever I could find it showing, usually alone, as my friends long since quit going with me after the second or third time, and even considered buying a 16 millimeter film copy of it so I could finally watch it to my hear's content at home, a rather expensive proposition. My fantasies included buying a theatre and showing nothing but American Graffiti all day and night long and not really caring who came, just so I could sit and watch it. Think if someone had told us a while ago that we would be willingly paying for drinking water in a bottle? Are you nuts? Or, paying for our tv signal. Or, willing paying to hook our computer (those who had them) up to a network? Or, that this network (Internet) would literally replace writing letters (now sneeringly referred to as "snail mail". Remember, how hard they tried to get us to buy computers, gee, we could put our kitchen recipes on them, instead of the little recipe box, which had worked fine for may years, yeah right. And then get flour and other cooking ingredients on and in the keyboard, when we could just wipe of the recipe box and be good to go again. Not until this thing called e-mail did all generations, including the senior ones, see and feel the need to get a computer or feel isolated. Well, the gauge is showing I'm getting low on whatever fuel this Time Cruiser runs on (I don't know everything about technology, I just get in and cruise) so lets come back to the current world and end our journey for now, and just try the best we can to figure out and enjoy the new toys that really do help us in the current world,(I wouldn't trade today and all the neat stuff for anytime before in history). Technology Tidbit for today: Talk about how time is compressing (Remember Alvin Toffler?) It is said that if a halfway point were drawn in the history of all inventions since the start of time, it would be around 1900. That means we have created as many inventions since 1900 to now, as we did in all of history before 1900. Tell me that's not cool, awesome, interesting, scary, unbelievable, ho hum, pick your word depending on your individual technological bent. Gotta go fill up the cruiser ....next time.