They say, .......and no I don't know who 'they' are and I highly doubt 'they' even exist. Perhaps 'they' are aliens who live in some parallel dimension and materialize every now and then to offer cute expressions, such as: A penny saved is a penny earned, Waste not Want not, All Lanes End - MERGE NOW! Anyway, 'they' say life is much like a poker game. You have to play the hand you are dealt.....and the game changes several times...from good to bad and back again. If I may have a moment to "wax philosophical" here...I have to say I agree because I have noticed over the years that some things have changed:
SOCIAL NETWORKS
It appears that we are now at a point where we actually believe other folks care about what we do every moment of the day. We must 'post' to inform everyone of everything. What we are eating, what we are doing, whether or not toilet paper is on sale, whether or not we like a television show, and what clothes we are wearing. Really? Are people really interested in the fact we are 'sitting by the lake with a cold beverage' at 3:00 on a Tuesday afternoon? The answer is YES! Post that and hundreds of people will respond with things like:
Man, I wish I was there! :0)
LOL LOL LOL I bet it's an ADULT cold beverage!
Don't you people have jobs? It's Tuesday!
As a child, my idea of a 'social network' was the shanty (and that is the proper way to describe it) that Petee, Dwight, Craig, and my brother Chris built in the empty field across the street from our house. Seriously, we found whatever type of building material we could and built what, by today's terrorist standards, would be considered upscale living. We used old signs, tarps, sheetrock, tires, whatever we could find. At one point, I remember coming home from school and finding (I am not making this up) a notice nailed to the side of the building from the crack team of building inspectors employed by the City of Lake Charles stating it did not 'meet code' and had to be demolished. There was a house on my street that had an extension cord running from the power pole to the main breaker on the house....THAT was fine, our 'social network' was not.
CELLULAR PHONES
Are we really that busy? Do we really need to be accessible 100% of the time to the point we need to excuse ourselves during our grandchilds' baptism to answer a call from the cretin in the loading dock who doesn't know where in the warehouse to put the case of tar that just came in? Is it that pressing? Is it that critical? Is he a moron? Now, I did not have gainful employment in my youth, but I do remember my Dad coming home and not worrying about a phone call from his office. No, my Dad worried about a call from the "Answering Service".... or as they are also known "Satan's Minions". If the phone rang after 5pm we were allowed to answer, but if the voice on the other end said "This is the answering service" we immediately went into alert mode. That kind of call had simple handling instructions:
FIND DAD. Don't do anything else, FIND DAD.
How did we communicate with our parents? We had a very sophisticated system....if the street lights were on, our butts were in the house. How did your parents 'notify' you to come inside? They flicked the porch light off and on...and GOD HELP YOU if you didn't see it. You could be 5 blocks away....doesn't matter, when the porch light started blinking you best get inside.
COMPUTERS
I remember my first experience with a computer. It was at college, and I was taking a FORTRAN class. Remember that? We typed into a computer the size of a Trailblazer code like this:
****output for Name
Write (11, *) If M= %^#®®β copy
End
Stop
Really
Stop
End
These were printed on 1400 punch cards. They were then placed in another computer the size of Rhode Island and I would wait with anticipation for that computer to spit out a 16x20 piece of paper.
What I wanted was the computer to print out my name....which it did, only it was misspelled.
Then there's GOOGLE....man's answer to the Library Card Catalog System. If we wanted to find out something, we had to actually look up the title of a book, then locate the index card (which was placed in one of the 11,000 drawers mounted on the wall) and then write down the number which would tell us where the book was located. Using the Dewey Decimal System, someone needing a book on say.....nose hair, would discover that particular book had the number 134.5498.~5454.nose.aeiou. This number indicated the book should be located on the fourth floor, section N, shelf 1, space R. Of course, it was not there because no one understood the Dewey Decimal System so all the books just got shoved on those little grey carts that were scattered at strategic points and left in the middle of the aisle.
TELEVISION
Many folks have had fun remembering the TV has changed dramatically over the last several years. When I was growing up....THREE channels...with two of them always running the same show of some guy with an accordion. Today I have 172 channels. Really, I do. Why? Well, my family likes a total of 5 channels. One local, one news, one specialty (HGTV), one SuperStation, and one kids network. To get those five, I had to subscribe to:
The BASIC Package
The LOCAL CHANNEL Package (for local channels....duh!)
The EXTENDED BASIC Package (for network news)
The OVEREXTENDED Package (for specialty)
The DELUXE Package (for SuperStation)
The BADGER Package (for Kids Network)
This costs me $70 per month...and no, I can't get it cheaper because to get each of the single channels I like, I must by the other 15 additional channels in that package. So in addition to the 5 I like to watch, I get these:
The Armadillo Channel
The Really Cool Relentless Explosions Channel
The Lawn and Shrub Channel
The Static Channel
The Skinny Models Wearing Bikinis and Exercising Channel
The Obscure Sports Channel
The Chuck Norris Buy This Exercise Equipment You Tub of Lard Channel
The No One Speaks English Channel
500 Pay per view Porn Channels
What a deal I have.....right?
The last 50 years have seen a great many changes....and I would expect the next 50 to do the same.
It really is true, the more things change....the more confused we become to the point of anger.
The older I get the more content I become with what is....and the less I worry about what is not or what might be. Life is about the journey.....not the destination....and every journey has it's problems. I guess we just have to remember that without the difficult times....we may not appreciate the good times.
I think Jimmy Buffett said it best, "some of it's magic, some of it's tragic, but I've had a good life all the way"
I have....and it's been a wonderful ride.....looking forward to more.
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