Time and Technology

Why do I feel like a .45 rpm single in an mp3 world? I was a hit at one time…even the b side got air play… but now I’m just an “Oldie Goldie” looking for a turntable with one of those big spindles and a working stylus.

Truth is I’m an analog 20th Century person trapped in a rapidly advancing digital 21st century. In the recently passed century I would have been thought of as a “brown shoe in a tuxedo world”…but even that is arcane now.

I am trying to fit in…trying to keep up with new technology and the Newspeak that goes along with it. I try to embrace concepts that are not bound by the time/space continuum that once governed the world we lived in…that’s before the “1’s” and “0’s” took over.

Come back with me …just a few short years ago…ok the mid 70’s is far enough.

Computers were housed in huge buildings and ran on punch cards and two inch tapes. Only big companies and colleges could afford them. Nobody’s house or car had a computer of any kind. Cars, by the way functioned with “points and plugs”, and may have had an eight track player in the dash. A digital watch and a hand held calculator were big and expensive deals…. great Christmas presents.

My world had less choices like AM or FM, and ABC, CBS, or NBC. Nothing was “on demand.” Meaning we all had to wait for “appointment TV” to see the popular shows everyone would be talking about the next day. And if you missed it…you missed it. No down loading or recording it for later. And no fast forwarding through commercials. Maybe you could catch it in a rerun.

And the only movies you could watch at home were….home movies. That meant going out for a movie was a fun date and the only way we were going to see the latest Hollywood productions until they hit the drive in’s a few months later. We had to wait for things, plan for things and meet time lines and deadlines. And the wait made it worth it. Like waiting for the Wizard of Oz that came on once a year.

Pong was fun…a few times. But there was always foosball, ping pong and pool, if we were going to stay indoors for recreation. Remember how hard it was to find an open tennis court when you wanted one? Or, just how long would we wait for a bowling lane to open up before we would leave and head for Putt Putt? Maybe we were in better physical shape?

I’m not any good at Wii and a little too inhibited to really let go on Rock Band, even if it is The Beatles catalog.

I realize that the information in our Funk & Wagnall’s was 10 years old. But should I trust Wikipedia … or any other source on the internet?

The world to come, envisioned by Star Trek and Star Wars…even the Jetsons, looked like fun. But I don’t think any of us ever considered what that world of computerized hyper fast 24/7 digital communications would mean to us. …or what it would do to us and our chosen careers …or way of life. To borrow a phrase from my Dad…I don’t know whether to “sh—or go blind” any more... or “I don’t know Sh—from Shinola”, not in the 21st Century I don’t.

Ok, ok….I sound like an “old fart”, don’t I? Well, to tell the truth, the shoe not only fits…it’s a pretty comfortable fit at that.