A Land before Time (or at least the iPhone)
I am sure some day my daughter will tell me that I lived in the time of the dinosaurs because of all the things I didn't have around that she does. I can remember being amazed that my parents grew up without television and listened to the radio for their entertainment. They also didn't have a lot of the electronic devices that had been part of my life for a long as I could remember. They remember World War 2. I remember Vietnam. I am hoping that Caroline will not have to remember the "conflict in Iraq" as her first war. Heck I am hoping she knows a time of peace where there is no war (Yeah I'm a dreamer).
She will not remember a time before
Cell phones-I can remember how proud I was when I finally got a pager which my boss learned to use all to well to find me to ask questions or give me revised game plans for the shop. I held off on the cell phone until I was working at Del Rey and it became a useful tool to have to call Peter and tell him which train I was on so he knew when I would be home for dinner. The difference between the first model cell phone I had and the current one I have are light years apart. I can put my current one in my pocket with no trouble. The first one clipped to my belt or lived in my backpack. And text messaging, that is a new twist as well.
Personal Computers and the Internet-This is the one thing that I think has changed our lives more than just about anything other invention in my lifetime so far. It use to be that you had to go to the mainframe and use a monitor to use the computer. I can remember going to my father's office and playing that very early Star Trek game on the Tech main frame and then were was Zork (which was much later). Then you could bring a terminal home and dial-up the main frame. This was a leap indeed. The next thing we knew you could have a computer in your house. The personal computer showed up when I was in high school. Still to talk to other computers, you needed to hook into the mainframe. When they put a computer into the library of our school Kenny and I became the keepers of the computer because we understood how it worked. We even wrote silly programs for it. I am not sure when the whole Internet thing started but the ability to send stuff electronically was a revolution in my eyes. I joined AOL and quickly became part of the community there as well as joining the teaching core and earning free time on AOL for my work. Since then we have had seen improvements in leaps and bounds both in the computers we use (Remember the original Apple and the tape recorder for recording programs like Lemonade?) and the speed and what you can do on the Internet.
DVDs- Heck I remember a time before VCRs. To really show my age, I remember a time before color television and the large console TVs that would become another piece of furniture. DVDs are amazing if you consider all that could/would go wrong with video tape. The picture quality is so much better and the medium last longer (Yes DVDs are not forever). Now we have DVD players small enough to fit in the car to keep the kids amused on long trips. Also DVDs are a heck of a lot easier to store than VHS tapes (or even Beta Tapes) She will never know a time when you couldn't buy your favorite movie or TV show a couple of months after it was in theater or on TV
Air Conditioning in the car- I can remember that we first put AC in my parents Dodge Dart. It was a kit from Sears I believe that Sear installed. Made that trip down to Florida seems a heck of a lot shorter and we loved our "air cool" as Miss Daisy would say.
Handheld electronic games-The graphics are so much cool than those on the original gaming consoles. I can remember when the first electronic games were introduced and you could find them in game arcades. I can remember when Dragon Lance came out and I lost a lot of quarters. Now the games are even more sophisticated and the graphics are even more amazing. Having a game in the palm of her hand is nothing new for Caroline but just part of growing up.
I know that there are a lot more things that I remember a time before including Star Wars, the Muppets, reality TV, the modern volunteer army (who have my deepest gratitude for what they do along with their families and friends), cheap airfare, and many others.
I am grateful for all these things that my daughter enjoys that I didn't until they were invented.
She will not remember a time before
Cell phones-I can remember how proud I was when I finally got a pager which my boss learned to use all to well to find me to ask questions or give me revised game plans for the shop. I held off on the cell phone until I was working at Del Rey and it became a useful tool to have to call Peter and tell him which train I was on so he knew when I would be home for dinner. The difference between the first model cell phone I had and the current one I have are light years apart. I can put my current one in my pocket with no trouble. The first one clipped to my belt or lived in my backpack. And text messaging, that is a new twist as well.
Personal Computers and the Internet-This is the one thing that I think has changed our lives more than just about anything other invention in my lifetime so far. It use to be that you had to go to the mainframe and use a monitor to use the computer. I can remember going to my father's office and playing that very early Star Trek game on the Tech main frame and then were was Zork (which was much later). Then you could bring a terminal home and dial-up the main frame. This was a leap indeed. The next thing we knew you could have a computer in your house. The personal computer showed up when I was in high school. Still to talk to other computers, you needed to hook into the mainframe. When they put a computer into the library of our school Kenny and I became the keepers of the computer because we understood how it worked. We even wrote silly programs for it. I am not sure when the whole Internet thing started but the ability to send stuff electronically was a revolution in my eyes. I joined AOL and quickly became part of the community there as well as joining the teaching core and earning free time on AOL for my work. Since then we have had seen improvements in leaps and bounds both in the computers we use (Remember the original Apple and the tape recorder for recording programs like Lemonade?) and the speed and what you can do on the Internet.
DVDs- Heck I remember a time before VCRs. To really show my age, I remember a time before color television and the large console TVs that would become another piece of furniture. DVDs are amazing if you consider all that could/would go wrong with video tape. The picture quality is so much better and the medium last longer (Yes DVDs are not forever). Now we have DVD players small enough to fit in the car to keep the kids amused on long trips. Also DVDs are a heck of a lot easier to store than VHS tapes (or even Beta Tapes) She will never know a time when you couldn't buy your favorite movie or TV show a couple of months after it was in theater or on TV
Air Conditioning in the car- I can remember that we first put AC in my parents Dodge Dart. It was a kit from Sears I believe that Sear installed. Made that trip down to Florida seems a heck of a lot shorter and we loved our "air cool" as Miss Daisy would say.
Handheld electronic games-The graphics are so much cool than those on the original gaming consoles. I can remember when the first electronic games were introduced and you could find them in game arcades. I can remember when Dragon Lance came out and I lost a lot of quarters. Now the games are even more sophisticated and the graphics are even more amazing. Having a game in the palm of her hand is nothing new for Caroline but just part of growing up.
I know that there are a lot more things that I remember a time before including Star Wars, the Muppets, reality TV, the modern volunteer army (who have my deepest gratitude for what they do along with their families and friends), cheap airfare, and many others.
I am grateful for all these things that my daughter enjoys that I didn't until they were invented.