Thursday, April 15, 2010

A Decade of Change

Check out Tim McGraw's song...sums it all up rather well :)

Back When

We had an exhilerating Safety Meeting last night and our team sat together through the meal, laughing about some of the funny exchanges we've had.  Most of them head slappers based on the things those of us over 30 know that the 20 somethings never heard of.  Like the rubbernecker theory and the Rumpelstiltskin stories I mentioned in previous blogs.

Things change, of course they do.  But what a difference a mere 10 years can make!

They don't remember rotary phones.  Remember those?  We had an avacado green wall mounted phone in the kitchen.  That was THE phone for the longest time too btw...  The cord was stretched 15 feet long and would get all tangled up.  You had to dangle the receiver and let it spin to untangle it.  You had to get rid of the rotary phones when 911 came into effect...it took too long for the 9 to go around...tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick....  Talk about a pain in the ass when you dialed the number wrong and had to start all over.  However, slamming the phone down on someone was gratifying.

We sit and listen to the young guys talk about their fancy gidgets and gadgets.  Dudes love that shit.  Six Foot Scary (45) finally broke down and got a BlueRay.  Hey, that's cool right?

Remember the disks?

Think back...way back...before the VHS, before the BETA.  The disk.  A big ass album looking thing. 

Albums...omg.  I'm about to get sidetracked for a moment.  But apparently I'm old and this is acceptable....

When The Short One was a little girl, we were visiting my folks at the farmhouse.  She found a 45 in my old bedroom closet and asked me what kind of a frisbee it was.

Wow.

The Tall One was about 6 when my grandmother was enjoying her birthday cake at our dinner table.  The mini Tall One asked her how old she was, and when she replied "71" his eyes just about popped out of his head. 

"Did you see the dinosaurs????"

I thought she was going to throw her fork at him.  But it had cake on it.

Getting back to the kids at work...who are only 10 years or so behind me...most of them...****sob****

They don't remember the PC era.  That's Pre Computers.

I remember when the office I worked in changed over to computers.  Big ugly ass yellow things with iddy bitty monochrome monitors that gave you a headache after an hour.  And the gigantic mainframe.

And using a typewriter.

In fact, it was a really good typewriter if it had the little preview screen that let you preview one bloody sentence at a time before you hit enter and it typed it out for you.  That was an electric typewriter.  I learned on the really ancient model you had to drive the keys all the way down, and listen for the satisfying little wack, wack, wack as you typed away.  And it dinged when you got to the end.  And the whole cartridge moved when you hit return.  You had to make sure your table was sturdy or shit would get knocked over.

Laptops.

pffft.

IPods.

sheesh.

Things have changed so much...but it's fun to remember..

Big hair, harlem pants, Cougar boots with the laces undone.....