I saved the response below to a Tim Province Facebook comment a year and a half ago and just ran across it and felt it was worthy to put in my blog. This will let my grand kids (and my kids) know what life, technology-wise, when I was growing up. There's actually a lot more I should write sometime. I should share my typewriter collection with pictures and stories. We didn't have computers and keyboards. We wrote our college papers on big bulky typewriters and made corrections with correction-tape. That was even before someone invented white-out.
By the way, I frequently learn and re-learn that when I write a long response to someone's post, I should write it in Word or Gmail and transfer it to the post in case I lose everything when I absentmindedly leave the post to view some exciting ad on the page. Not only do I save my writing from erasure, but I can spellcheck it and I can find it again. Just try to find something you wrote in facebook more than just a few days ago.
This old guy was waiting for a bus patiently listening to an arrogant young guy who was playing with his smartphone and was bragging about all the modern conveniences his generation enjoyed. "Why you old guys didn't even have TV's, I'll bet. And your movies were black and white. I guess you didn't even have helicopters and microwaves. What has your generation been doing all this time with your old fashioned ways? Huh? What?"
The old guy, unruffled by all the young man's blustering nonsense said calmly, "We were inventing all those luxuries you can't live without!"
Thursday, July 5, 2012
This blog is in response to a Face book posting, I am sure
out of frustration.
Tim Provence
Honestly, I want to delete my Face book & Twitter. I want to throw away my
iPhone. Unplug! I want to go back to rotary phones & photo albums on the
coffee table. Will I? No. But I'm sure life would be just honkie dory.
John's Response:
By the way, Tim, a hunky dory is a small Hungarian boat (joke). I was astonished when those black Western-Electric phones got dials on them, and we didn't have to place even our local calls through the Operator anymore. To call someone out of town, we had to ask the operator to make the long distance call for us, and then we would wait for her (almost always a her) to call back when the party was on the line. Often that would take half an hour or more. The cost of long distance in the 1940's was often several dollars. Naw, I don't think you would really intentionally leave modern technology.
Those photo albums involved waiting for the film to be developed and printed and then gluing down those little corners in the album so the pictures would stay. It would have been nearly impossible to send pictures to everyone as you do on Face book. Although the stamps were only 3 cents back then.
When the EMP (electro-magnetic-pulse) comes and destroys or makes useless all our modern gadgets, including cars and phones and industry, we may want to have some of the old technology. Iran can probably do that with their current technology and a freighter that could launch a warhead into our lower atmosphere. I just realized that I have darkroom equipment to develop and enlarge photos; printing equipment to mimeograph information to pass along as well as a 5" x 8" printing press and many fonts of type in type cases to print off notices and handbills to friends and neighbors. I also have a typewriter collection that goes back to the 19th century.
Wow, I didn't realize until now that I have the start of a museum! My kids will probably throw it all out if I don't find a place to preserve my old stuff that my grand kids would love to see.
No comments:
Post a Comment