Hoodathunk?
I was in my sophomore year in high school in 1973. Near the end of the school year, the seniors were all harvested into the auditorium to hear a motivational lecture on succeeding in life after high school. A group of friends along with yours truly decided to cut classes and sneak into the auditorium to see what was going on.
The speaker turned out to be a man that had worked for NASA for several years. He gave a good talk, motivational to say the least, but he mentioned one fact that stuck in my brain. He told us that in “just a few short years, all of us will have ‘Star Trek-like’ communicators and that we would be able to communicate with anyone else on earth that has one like it.”
What a load of crap that was, or so I thought.
What spawned this piece was what I found today in my garage. While cleaning out my tool box, I found a calendar book from 2005 and an address book from around the same time period. Thumbing through the pages, I realized that I had all of this information and 100 times more on my smart phone…my “Star Trek Communicator”.
I began to scour my brain to remember that day in 1973 with a little more detail. The lecturer was right. He spoke of personal home computers, things being “digitalized”, and even spoke of cars that drove themselves. Wow. Now we have those things. And we also have Social Networking.
When I was young, I remember my dad talking about how he wished he could see his old Army buddies again, or his childhood friends. Before he passed away in 1999, I was able to reconnect him with his USAAF co-pilot and some of his bomber crew. He was very pleased. But still, that was before I discovered “MySpace” and “Facebook”. Through MySpace, I was able to reconnect with my childhood friends, more specifically “Nonnie”, the “girl next door”. I hadn’t seen her in years. We have since both migrated over to Facebook and this September we will have known each other as friends for 50 years. And there were so many other childhood friends out there as well. And of course reunions are imminent.
Hoodathunk?
Technology is moving at an alarming rate. There are things going on that we don’t even know about yet. My father in law has mixed emotions on all of it, though. He is 81 years old, and refuses to have any “new” appliances in his house, as he claims that someone on the 700 Club said that the government uses the new technology to “spy” on us. So he refuses to get a new washer, TV, car, truck….even a newer blender. If it has a chip in it, he doesn’t want it. But he will use his home computer to search out guns and ammo “anonymously” in preparation for “the last days”. We all tried to explain to him about “web bots”, but we lost him on that. Go figure. I threw him a curve one day when I showed him a satellite view of his property, complete with his truck parked in the driveway. He was not happy.
But one EMP (electromagnetic pulse) and all of these new advances are for naught. We could be thrust back into the 19th century in a matter of a few seconds. How would we deal with that? I think that those of us that were born in the early 60’s and before might have a chance. We grew up without the advent of home computers and cell phones. We learned to get along with simple appliances, or in some cases, no household luxuries at all. Camping was more prevalent among family life, there were more kids involved in the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts. We are probably the last generation that could actually survive a technological demise. I like to think that I have taught my kids the same knowledge as I grew up with, but they have had so many more influences than I had. We took them camping, hunting, fishing and I showed them the outdoor techniques that I learned in the Scouts and from my father. Good luck to them. As for my father in law….well, he feels like he is fine as long as he has his guns. Me? I am thumbing through the Lehman’s Catalog.
Again, Hoodathunk? I can’t wait to see what tomorrow brings.
It is a hot and sticky humid day here in Lulawissie. Living on the lake has its advantages, but 100% humidity isn’t one of them. Swimming in it, though, is sweet relief.
As always my friends, thank you for stopping by. It is always a pleasure to know that there is at least one person out there that enjoys what I have to say. Please look out for one another, be kind to your neighbors, do good deeds for people you don’t know and always give thanks to the Lord above, for the good things and the bad. It all works out.
I bid you peace.
©2012 By Del Banks
