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- #61
Mace Gill
Songster
And now CDs are 'old school' and disappearing fast!Ok, so showing my age a bit, but......
I used to BE the internet, or the nearest thing they had to it. I worked at the telephone exchange and people would ring up sometimes and ask questions they couldn't remember the answer to. If one of us knew, we'd tell them.
I also got to work a switchboard that had plugs and cords.
The thing I find a bit strange and sometimes amusing is the pronouncements that people make about "how things were" before they were even born. I've had people say "everyone did this back then" and I've gone "don't be ridiculous, no they didn't". Of course, even if you were about, you only know what it was like where you were. A lot of what we think things were like in, say, 1950s USA comes from movies and TV. What it was really like is probably very different.
At least the people going nostalgic over the 1990s are appreciating how quickly things change. I don't think people really realise how quickly things move on. Even within that time frame the internet has gone from something optional to something just about everyone has.
I'm not completely ancient, but older people when I was little had old stuff. The lady next door used to boil her sheets in a wood-powered copper. She had one of those washing machines that didn't spin, you had to run the clothes through a ringer attached to the top. I used to LOVE going to her house to help with the washing, I thought it was much more fun than the fully automatic modern washer we had at home. Stirring the sheets with a stick, feeding the things through the wringer, it was entertainment for me.
Anyone today would be horrified to think of the work involved in some of the things people even had to do within a generation or 2 older than them. None of it's ancient history.
They don't realise that not too far down the track they could be the person turning a cd over and getting laughed at because they haven't yet been exposed to some new technology. (yes, I really did that)
As for folks talking about 'how it was' that's it ... remembering a 'golden Age' of ain't never was
... that 'golden age' is always about 50 years before your time. Wonder how the folks that are into ren fairs would've enjoyed a little plague popping up now and again. But it is all fun to contemplate ... the best parts of the past. Hopefully we can learn to make them the best parts of the future.Remember, each story about King Arthur was written using modern technology and social norms (by whichever century a particular author was writing in) ... right up until Sir Thomas Mallory in about 1485. After that, each new author seemed to set the tales somewhere between the dark ages and the middle ages.
honestly, nothing in particular against NJ. I have family in NJ 
