Past and future
I'm 80 but have had two glimpses of the future lately. My grandson showed up with his Tesla and took me for a ride where I was terrified by him not driving the car. It even parked itself! Then, we ate at a restaurant where a robot brought our food. Heaven only knows what the future will bring.
I thought back to some of the "new" things I saw in my life. As a 4yo, a neighbor babysat me while Mom worked. One day, her husband brought home an electric toaster. It was magic! Put in bread and it toasts by itself! We went through a whole loaf. I often played with the boy next door whose family had a tv, we didn't. The programming came on at noon so we sat there staring at the test pattern til it began. The high point of the day was Howdy Doody at 3.
Fitted sheets were a miracle. Who would have thought? Conditioner was a hair revolution. I didn't have to clean it up but I remember the coal man delivering. The housewives must have been so grateful when gas heat came in. No-iron fabrics - they've saved hours and hours of precious time. Mom ironed her sheets on a wrangle, a machine with a large rotating cylinder. I did plenty of ironing in my day - thank goodness that's over.
I guess every generation experiences the changes. I often think about my grandparents, they saw indoor plumbing become standard. They were raised with horses and saw the whole car revolution.
I just wonder what all the future will bring, you guys will see it all.
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Comments
I'll trade you for seeing the
I'll trade you for seeing the future, I'd like to go back about 100 years.
Lol
I dont want to go back. Washing clothes by hand, hanging them on a line in all kinds of weather......
Don't forget
Starching shirts and leaving them in the icebox before ironing them. I don't miss that. I still hang clothes on the line in the summer though.
I'm with you
Kids were too busy helping the family and were expected to instead of being selfish and entitled.
Yup. I'm tired of the new way
Yup. I'm tired of the new way of parenting. I'm tired of technology and being connected 24/7. I want to wait for letters in the mail. I want the slower pace of life (even if it's harder). I want the quiet of book reading at night or even a radio, not the latest trashy 500in Black Friday trample special TV reality show blaring. I want picnics, and porches and snapping green beans and making pies. I want stores closed on holidays and handmade things (less commercialization). I want kids who helped out, played outside and respected their elders. I want people who actually know how to fix things. I want things made from real wood, not particle board. Etc etc etc etc etc.
I know there was a lot wrong with the old days and you can probably make a list just as long against my argument but I can't help but think of the line from the Shawshank Redemption:
"The world went and got itself in a big damn hurry"
I feel like that guy.
Me too
I like the 1st of May when my asparagus garden starts producing, then June the strawberries, then July when cherries get picked, then the explosion of fruit through the end of August, buying garlic in bulk early September to last through winter. Picking pumpkins in October to make pie out of and decorating for Autumn. Used to ice skate and go sledding in the winter.
I will say I"m not too fond anymore of splitting and stacking wood for the two woodstoves. Now that I'm 64, Chef still expects me to haul 200 lbs of firewood on an ice sled a half an acre to be restacked on the indoor wood rack everyday.
If I don't wear my crampons on my Sorels which can cause snow clumps, I fall on my tuchus which isn't good at this age.
I felt that
100% share your sentiments, AlmostGone.
At 63....
I've seen a few things, too! I remember getting our first hair dryer. A Vidal Sassoon that was brown and shapped like a brush. The kids were not allowed to use it. LOL
Mobil Phones: I went from a bag phone to a flip phone to a Black Berry...
Skype/Facetime: Whoa! George Jetson was right!!!
Future: DH and i were just discussing the Tesla and future of self driving cars. I'm not there yet. I need to be in control. LOL I wonder what space travel will be like for our kids??
BUT I am in agreement with AlmostGone:
"The world went and got itself in a big damn hurry"
Seriously, we need to slow down and enjoy this short life we get. That's a goal for me in 2025. Slow down and smell the roses.
Future cars
Once they get the self-driving cars all straightened out and install lots more charging stations, it will be great for the elderly. The whole "too old to drive safely" issue will change once people can just get in their car and select "Walmart" or "church" or wherever and the car will take them there safely. People will stay independent longer
60. I remember the moon landing. The fall of Saigon.
The first Tandy (Radio Shack) TRS 80 personal computer, the Commodore 64. The advent of the PDA. My first TI scientific calculator. Then my monster geek HP-48SX RPN programmable scientific calculator. I remember how excited I was when my parents bought their first vehicle with A/C. Doubly excited considering I grew up in and we lived in Saudi Arabia before buying their first Suburban in the late 70s my parents had soft top Toyota Land Cruisers. Our road/camping trips were journeys through Dante's Inferno and all 9 circles of hell. Actually it just was what it was and made many incredible memories.
TV was a single channel. Blacked out with black Sharpie when anyone kissed or women had on short sleeves or shorter skirts. All magazines were censored, particularly the photos, though also a notable amount of the print.
Digital watches. The red LED Texas Instruments plastic watches were magic. And pocket calculators. I was just learning how to use a slide rule when the school shifted to calculators. Touch dial phones replacing rotary dial.
Garage door remotes. I too did the bag phone, to flip phone, to Blackberry transition.
End of service is not IMHO advancement. Give me a human who understands customer service over self service, robot servers, or self driving anything. I truly hope that someone who is catastrophically injured by that crap owns all of those companies. As an Engineer this may seem bass ackwards. However, the devolution of intellectual rigor as cheat technologies have propagated makes me sad for our future as a species.
Certainly some stuff is interesting and intriguing. So much of it is a spiral down the progression of mind killing idiocy.
IMHO of course.
Though I will say if Rosey the Robot maid from the Jetson's were to show up, with her robot Chef partner I could get on board with that.
Kids need to be firmly versed in the basics and know it inside out, upside down, and backwards. The 3 "Rs" and the S, Reading, (w)Riting, (a)Rithmetic, Science each and every semester. All updated for the most current advances of course. Add history (World and US), and home economics (check book balancing, budgeting, etc,,,) and no diplomas without standards based confirmation of competence in the basics of each class. No pass, no diploma. Add electives for some number of credit hours to deal with the arts, etc... Not to forget PE. Requiring competence confirmation in each and every class to get the credit. IMHO of course. Kids can customize their curriculum via electives beyond the core mandatory basics.
I do appreciate the innovation of online education. I have found it to be as effective as the traditional brick and mortar education model. Though I have huge concerns about the lack of accountability regarding confirmed competence in education in general in the evolving future. We have started to make education about feelings and not mastering material. IMHO, not much about the evolving education models is effective or efficient when teachers have to parent, care for, coddle, comfort, and cater to kids rather than teaching them.
What frightens me most about the future is the overstepping by government that is forcing a non viable product on the automotive industry and consumers, unsustainable unreliable energy sources on an outdated infrastructure, that cannot sustain basic service when overburdened by government interference in areas it has no business being in.
What I am excited about is the incredible advances driven by private sector innovations in space exploration technologies. This will create entire new economies as the Space program did in the 50s, 60s, and 70s. The semiconductor industry, incredible advances in metallurgy, environmental control systems, etc, etc....
That is the future I am excited about. A future where young minds engage to create and deliver real and boundless opportunities and solve actual critical problems instead of distracting themselves with their fee fees and drinking the crap example Kool-Aid blathered by so many with sadly deficient parents.
And... a truly fully functional artificial pancreas. I want that.
Computer pioneer
My first computer experience came when I worked for a construction-related company in the 60s. They had a payroll program fed by punched tape. So, each week, I'd punch the hours on a long yellow tape that fed the payroll program that made the paychecks.
At a subsequent job in the 70s, I punched cards that fed a washer-sized computer that produced the checks to pay vendors.
When I started work at the niche mortgage company where I worked 33 years, many legal documents for many states were required and all were ordered from a printer. He loved me, Lol. Every time the law changed, I had to reorder. As we got computers, this seemed like a perfect word processing application but it was an uphill fight to get the older, male management to grasp it
.I lived and worked thru all the changes in the computer world from the 60s to 2014 when I retired. I feel like a computer pilgrim. Lol.