Talk about the generation gap. I feel like Arnold Fine today. Here's what happened.
I was talking to Boo about when Lovey and I were kids, so I threw out during the conversation that the person we were talking about should have just used her cell phone. Now to Boo, this made perfect sense in her 11 year old mind, as she has no concept of a cell phone free world. So I told her the person could not have used a cell phone, because no one had them.
Incredulous look.
Well, since Boo thinks I'm kidding her all the time, she didn't really believe me. I told her, and Big Sis, who had joined the conversation at this point, that when I was a kid, no one had a cell phone, and when I was a teenager I know a person who had a car phone. Even then, I had to stress A person, as in only one. Boo then asked me how people communicated. I told her pay phones, but when I started working I had a beeper.
Absolute.
Blank.
Stare.
This one, she couldn't even COMPREHEND, never having seen or heard of the technological advance of its time. So I explained that you called a number, and left a number, then the person would get to a phone and call. She still didn't truly grasp the concept until I told her that newer advanced models had answering services send text messages. THIS she was able to understand.
Its incredible how what was a great advance in our day is considered an obsolete relic by the current generation. I finally can imagine the wonders that the generation before me experienced with even more amazing advances, and I have a new found respect for older people who adapt and utilize the new technologies.
But I still feel old.
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4 comments:
When my father was staying at my house for a few days, one of my kids asked:
"Did they have pens in your day?"
He said "What?"
She asked: "did they have pens, or did you write with feathers?"
He responded, "No, we used sticks, and pricked our skin and wrote with the blood."
Then a ridiculous conversation about JK Rowling ensued. It seems people of that age group are convinced that pre Harry Potter she was so poor she wrote her first drafts in her own blood on napkins in a cafe.
Her aunt may or may not be responsible for this little tidbit.
I remember when nobody got college grades via email (BECAUSE NOBODY HAD EMAIL).
You had to go from one lecture hall to the next where outside were posted a huge list of grades. You had to locate the last four digits of your social security number and the grade next to it was yours. Tell THAT to any college kid today!
When I was a kid we still had rotary phones. Explain that to a kid, right after you explain how a car window had to be cranked. See 'ya tonight
Yes, I take full responsibility for the line about JK Rowling. But totally based on something about her having to get paper out of a dumpster because she was so poor.
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