published February 10, 2011
in the Stockton Sentinel,
Stockton, Kansas
A couple of
weeks ago, I bemoaned the possible demise of cursive handwriting, but actually,
there are many more familiar things that may soon become relics of the
not-so-distant past. No matter your age, when you think about how you used to
do something, there isn’t much that you’re still doing the same way.
Changes
used to be viewed from one generation back to a previous one. For instance, I
don’t know what it was like to travel everywhere by horse and buggy, but my
grandparents did. I didn’t have to walk to school, in waist-high snow, five
miles uphill both ways, like my parents did.
But then
came the “baby boomers” – those of us born in the 50s and early 60s – and life
was no longer in the slow lane. Soon we were comparing advancements by decade.
Since the
new century began, however, the volume of new-fangled things is mind-boggling,
and even looking back one year a time would fill a large multi-volume set of
encyclopedia. (You remember an encyclopedia, don’t you? en·cy′·clo·pae′·dia, noun. 1. A book or set of books giving information on all or many
branches of knowledge, generally in articles alphabetically arranged.)
As I think
about some of the things fading away from use, there are certainly some things
I won’t miss. But there are also some things that I will probably hang on to
for dear life until I’m one of the last ones trying to keep it alive.
For
example, a wrist watch isn’t really necessary anymore when the most accurate
time is on my computer or smartphone. Personally, I like wrist watches and have
quite a collection of them, although I’ll admit I rarely look at my watch
during the day because my jobs have me in front of a computer. In fact, one
day, not too long ago, I realized at the end of the day that I had put my watch
on my wrist upside-down that morning. Obviously I never looked at it throughout
the entire day. But I still like a wrist watch.
In just the
last year or two, movie rental stores have all but disappeared. Other than the
Red Box at McDonald’s and other frequent haunts, we don’t have to go somewhere
to rent movies, so the large Blockbuster-type stores have disappeared,
including Stockton’s own Prairie Classics. I am one of the guilty ones for
causing this death – the DishNetwork receiver connected to our TV brings more
movies to our fingertips than we can possibly watch.
Once upon a
not-so-long-time-ago, you could pick up a roadmap at every gas station; now, paper
maps are practically obsolete. Who wants to mess with a huge map when you can
simply plot your travels on MapQuest, GoogleMaps or other similar programs on
your computer or smartphone? When I travel alone to far-away places like Topeka
or Kansas City, I take “Jason” with me. (Yes, Bob knows all about Jason; in
fact, he makes sure I never leave home without him!) Jason is the voice in the
satellite navigator that tells me every turn to make and when to turn back at
the next available intersection.
Babies born
in 2011 and beyond will probably never know about a phone that plugged into a
wall. I haven’t pulled the plug yet to discontinue land-line service, but I
know many who have and are still alive. Without their names in a phonebook,
however, they are certainly difficult to locate. Perhaps that is one reason
they have disowned “Ma Bell.” But as for me and my house, a land line is one
endangered species that I will protect and continue to feed for quite a while.
I’m not
saying we should put our foot down against progress. But the dizzying pace of
innovations is sure difficult to keep track of. And by the way, can we all
agree to boycott whatever comes after DVDs and blu-ray?
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