Changing times
14/06/15 05:12
I suppose that every generation has certain unique features. Change comes quickly and things of the past disappear as new features emerge. For some reason, I have been thinking of changes that I have seen in my lifetime that my grandchildren will take for granted.
Before I get to those things, however, a bit about those who have gone before. My grandfather was born in a sod hut on a North Dakota homestead. They walked or used horses for transportation until he was a young adult. He lived long enough to make the transition from earning his living as a farmer to owning a service station and specializing in servicing and repairing automobiles. He owned quite a few different cars in his lifetime. His son was a pilot. He personally lived through the transition from the era of human- and animal-powered transportation to the jet age. Neil Armstrong walked on the moon before the end of his life.
I remember the elders being amazed at the amount of change in their lives. My wife’s grandmother, who grew up before her family had an automobile and lived long enough to travel by airliner to visit her family, used to comment on what amazing changes took place in her life.
Here are a few things that I know and understand that probably will be things of the past for my grandchildren.
Car windows that raise and lower with the use of a hand crank. The mechanism to raise and lower a car window didn’t used to require an electric motor. I don’t remember the cranks being difficult to use or hard to turn. I suppose the only thing was that you had to reach across the car to roll down the passenger window if you were the driver. And it could involve a bit of getting out and walking around to roll up or down the windows in the back of the car. Of course back in the day, we had corner vent windows in all of our cars. They improved the airflow when driving down the highway in those pre-air conditioning days. I guess my grandchildren will never experience a car without air conditioning, either. I can remember telling a car dealer, when negotiating for a new car, that I definitely didn’t need air conditioning. Where we lived there were less than 30 days a year that demanded air conditioning. That was in 1982. It was also the last car I owned without air conditioning.
My grandchildren probably won’t learn about writing checks. Their parents have checking accounts, but barely use paper checks. They pay their bills with electronic funds transfers and use debt and credit cards to make purchases. They rarely carry or use cash. They don’t expect merchants to accept checks and they wouldn’t think of a checkbook as an item that they should carry with them or pack when preparing to travel.
My grandchildren won’t know what to do with a wire whisk. Their kitchens have electric mixers the stir everything. They won’t know that it is possible to beat an egg by hand. Devices that were considered to be necessary and part of every kitchen don’t exist in their world. They won’t be able to imagine why someone would need a stove to make a cup of coffee.
Of course there are things in the world of my grandchildren that I don’t have trouble imagining living without. They have never known a world without smart phones and tablet computers. They take these devices for granted as part of the world of every adult (and most kids over the age of 10). Everyone has a personal communication device. The thought of a home with a single telephone attached to the wall by a cord will never occur to them. I can remember when we’d go to church camp that was located more than 20 miles beyond the end of the telephone line. We didn’t know we needed phones to be at camp and a week beyond the reach of telephone communication wasn’t a problem at all. My grandchildren won’t be able to imagine a few hours without a phone - let alone a week.
Speaking of telephones, Susan and I still have one phone in our home - in our bedroom - that has a rotary dial. The princess bedside phone was obtained sometime in the ’70’s as a rental unit from the phone company, that offered telephones for sale sometime during the ’80’s. We bought the phones in our home and just kept using this one. Our children used to enjoy showing it to their friends, who couldn’t figure out how you would punch in the numbers to make a call with such a unit.
Yes, I know this makes me sound like a dinosaur: I can remember before our home had a television set. It didn’t seem like we were deprived or that we were missing anything.
My grandchildren know about keys, but they will live beyond the time of keys being used for security. Already there are plenty of vehicles that start by pushing a button, not by inserting and turning a key. We have two ways to enter our home by punching numbers into keypads instead of using keys. Fingerprint recognition technology is becoming so sophisticated that there are already plenty of lock systems that you simply touch to obtain access - more are on the way. I remember my father carrying a case with a wad of keys. I have fewer, but my ring contains two keys for different entrances at the church, a key for the church mailbox, four keys for various internal doors at the church, and a couple of padlock keys - and that is my work ring. I have another ring for my home items. And my car keys are on a separate ring. We have a drawer at home that is mostly keys. My grandchildren will never have that number of keys.
So the world changes and the pace of change is increasing. I’m sure there are plenty of other things that will change, plenty of things we consider to be necessary that will become obsolete and plenty of things we can’t imagine that will become everyday.
The good thing about this is that I’ll be able to entertain my grandchildren by telling them stories about the good old days. I may have trouble convincing them that we used to use hand tools that were connected to the wall by extension cords, however.
Before I get to those things, however, a bit about those who have gone before. My grandfather was born in a sod hut on a North Dakota homestead. They walked or used horses for transportation until he was a young adult. He lived long enough to make the transition from earning his living as a farmer to owning a service station and specializing in servicing and repairing automobiles. He owned quite a few different cars in his lifetime. His son was a pilot. He personally lived through the transition from the era of human- and animal-powered transportation to the jet age. Neil Armstrong walked on the moon before the end of his life.
I remember the elders being amazed at the amount of change in their lives. My wife’s grandmother, who grew up before her family had an automobile and lived long enough to travel by airliner to visit her family, used to comment on what amazing changes took place in her life.
Here are a few things that I know and understand that probably will be things of the past for my grandchildren.
Car windows that raise and lower with the use of a hand crank. The mechanism to raise and lower a car window didn’t used to require an electric motor. I don’t remember the cranks being difficult to use or hard to turn. I suppose the only thing was that you had to reach across the car to roll down the passenger window if you were the driver. And it could involve a bit of getting out and walking around to roll up or down the windows in the back of the car. Of course back in the day, we had corner vent windows in all of our cars. They improved the airflow when driving down the highway in those pre-air conditioning days. I guess my grandchildren will never experience a car without air conditioning, either. I can remember telling a car dealer, when negotiating for a new car, that I definitely didn’t need air conditioning. Where we lived there were less than 30 days a year that demanded air conditioning. That was in 1982. It was also the last car I owned without air conditioning.
My grandchildren probably won’t learn about writing checks. Their parents have checking accounts, but barely use paper checks. They pay their bills with electronic funds transfers and use debt and credit cards to make purchases. They rarely carry or use cash. They don’t expect merchants to accept checks and they wouldn’t think of a checkbook as an item that they should carry with them or pack when preparing to travel.
My grandchildren won’t know what to do with a wire whisk. Their kitchens have electric mixers the stir everything. They won’t know that it is possible to beat an egg by hand. Devices that were considered to be necessary and part of every kitchen don’t exist in their world. They won’t be able to imagine why someone would need a stove to make a cup of coffee.
Of course there are things in the world of my grandchildren that I don’t have trouble imagining living without. They have never known a world without smart phones and tablet computers. They take these devices for granted as part of the world of every adult (and most kids over the age of 10). Everyone has a personal communication device. The thought of a home with a single telephone attached to the wall by a cord will never occur to them. I can remember when we’d go to church camp that was located more than 20 miles beyond the end of the telephone line. We didn’t know we needed phones to be at camp and a week beyond the reach of telephone communication wasn’t a problem at all. My grandchildren won’t be able to imagine a few hours without a phone - let alone a week.
Speaking of telephones, Susan and I still have one phone in our home - in our bedroom - that has a rotary dial. The princess bedside phone was obtained sometime in the ’70’s as a rental unit from the phone company, that offered telephones for sale sometime during the ’80’s. We bought the phones in our home and just kept using this one. Our children used to enjoy showing it to their friends, who couldn’t figure out how you would punch in the numbers to make a call with such a unit.
Yes, I know this makes me sound like a dinosaur: I can remember before our home had a television set. It didn’t seem like we were deprived or that we were missing anything.
My grandchildren know about keys, but they will live beyond the time of keys being used for security. Already there are plenty of vehicles that start by pushing a button, not by inserting and turning a key. We have two ways to enter our home by punching numbers into keypads instead of using keys. Fingerprint recognition technology is becoming so sophisticated that there are already plenty of lock systems that you simply touch to obtain access - more are on the way. I remember my father carrying a case with a wad of keys. I have fewer, but my ring contains two keys for different entrances at the church, a key for the church mailbox, four keys for various internal doors at the church, and a couple of padlock keys - and that is my work ring. I have another ring for my home items. And my car keys are on a separate ring. We have a drawer at home that is mostly keys. My grandchildren will never have that number of keys.
So the world changes and the pace of change is increasing. I’m sure there are plenty of other things that will change, plenty of things we consider to be necessary that will become obsolete and plenty of things we can’t imagine that will become everyday.
The good thing about this is that I’ll be able to entertain my grandchildren by telling them stories about the good old days. I may have trouble convincing them that we used to use hand tools that were connected to the wall by extension cords, however.