My great-grandmother is turning 103 years old at the end of this month. She is amazing. I was reflecting on all the changes she has seen in her century of living – the world has changed so much during her life.
I’ve been alive less than a third of her years, but the world has changed a little in my lifetime too. When i’m old, i think i will tell my great-grandchildren some of the following things:
When i grew up, there was no internet. People got their news from newspapers, which they read over their morning coffee. We sometimes saved the colorful Sunday funnies for wrapping paper. There were no blogs and there was no Facebook, and to meet new people you had to get out of the house.
When i grew up, there were no DVDs or high-def TVs. Our parents made movies of us using VHS tapes, of which there are piles still in closets. Now a new TV may have a built-in DVD player, but you don’t see VHS players anymore.
When i grew up, there was no TiVo. We had to watch all the commercials, and time bathroom breaks to coincide with a commercial or the end of a show, because there was no pause button.
When i grew up, there were no iPods. In fact, CD players didn’t even come along until the middle of my childhood. I grew up buying tapes and listening to them on my walkman.
When i grew up, there were no cell phones. We had a landline phone in every house, and we had at least 20 phone numbers memorized. Parents’ and grandparents’ numbers, best friends, boyfriends and even your friends’ friends, just in case you needed to reach them. Call-waiting was a luxury, and all the phone companies charged for long-distance.
When i grew up, there were no laptops. Personal computers started becoming the norm by the time i was in high school, but for most of my school career, i had to write my papers using a typewriter. With plenty of white-out on hand to correct mistakes.
When i grew up, there were no hybrid vehicles. Everyone drove old-fashioned cars and trucks and most people didn’t know or care that we were using up all the oil on the planet.
When i grew up, there were no McDonald’s PlayPlaces. OK, that’s not entirely true. A few restaurants did have some play areas, but they looked nothing like they do now with their generic boxy plastic crawlspaces. We used to have ball pits, which have since been ruled unsanitary, but there was a joy beyond belief jumping into a ball pit, as long as no one had peed in it.
When i grew up, there were no digital cameras. 35mm film cameras were the norm, and you had to take your film to the local drugstore to get it developed. You couldn’t preview your pictures and determine that Dad had closed his eyes and know you should take another shot. Pictures that didn’t immediately get put into a photo album were inevitably tossed in a plastic bin or shoebox, to be taken out years later and laughed over.
When i grew up, there was no Homeland Security. You could take the pocket knife your dad gave you on a plane with you, and your loved ones could walk you to the airport gate and hug you goodbye and wave as your plane took off across the runway. And you didn’t have to ever remove your shoes.
When i grew up, there were no self-check-outs. You had to wait in long lines like everyone else, and the grocery store was always understaffed, and people always got into the Express Lane with too many items.
Undoubtedly there are plenty more things that we have now that we didn’t have when i was a child. And i suppose life is more convenient now, with the Internet and laptops and cellphones. But i’ll cherish my childhood typewriter and ball pit experiences, and tell my great-grandchildren about all the archaic things they missed.
Tags: life
