Why This Blog, Why Now? It's Really Not That Important.

When I was a kid, Cool Whip was still cool.

People smoked on airplanes... in the smoking section, of course. However, this really just meant the difference between Row 37 and 38. I'm still not sure how the smoke knew that it couldn't travel beyond that firmly etched, ethereal barrier, but we trusted that that was the only possible solution to accommodate all travelers' needs. The non-smokers in Rows 32-37 accommodated by sucking it up, and in exchange, the smokers in Rows 38 til the back kept their cool because they could feed their nicotine habit. But, by the late 80's (and I'm really lumping together a bunch of moves from 1983, the first ban, to 1998 when it applied to all domestic flights), they just banned smoking altogether on planes. I'm not for a moment suggesting this is a bad thing, but it's certainly evidence of change. Now, just last month, they initiated a ban on e-smoking in planes, as they don't know the effects of the pseudo-cigarettes and don't want to make laboratory mice out of all the innocent passengers who merely set out to change their geographic coordinates.

Some people had car phones. Car, not cell. These were devices tethered to the vehicle, most often in the center console. They were for emergencies. I don't actually recall an instance where my mother used hers. I know she did, but I don't remember what the occasion was... and when I do have any memories, we had already moved toward the cell/personal importance justification mode of mobile phone usage. In those times, if you told someone you were meeting them at noon, you had to be there at noon. Or you were late. If you were running late, you were late. If the other party had already left, and you didn't have the foresight to make a call from home, oh well. We didn't text (this word originally meant "words"), or email, or any other form of advanced technological communicative verb you want to insert here. I think we had to be more on time. That, or more of your contacts simply wore the label "late person." They say technology makes us more connected to one another, but really, we've certainly lost connection to ourselves, and managing our time and activities; and we've definitely lost any connection to others, and sensitivity for their time. Of course, you can make the argument that it's happening to everyone, and so in a tit for tat measure, it's all the same. But I'm not. And it's not.

When we wanted to go the movies, we did one of two things: we opened the newspaper (the one that was delivered daily) and turned to the movie section, where we scanned our local theaters, and checked for convenient times. Well actually, first we might flip through the movie adverts to see exactly what we wanted to see, look at the bottom of the ad for available theaters, then flip to the "theaters section" where we could find times. The second option, if we were out and about, was to drive by the movie theater. The driver would slow down, you'd roll down your window and peak at the times listed on the marquis. And if you wanted to go in the evening, but were afraid it would sell out, you'd stop by early in the day to buy tickets. The ideas of calling Moviefone to get movie times, and buying tickets by phone came along later.

When we wanted to go somewhere we hadn't been, or call someone or a business we hadn't yet, we had books to assist us in these tasks. For the former task, we consulted the Thomas Guide; for the latter, the Phone Book. Sometimes when giving direction, a person might add, "Yeah, we're E4 on page 222 of the Thomas Guide." And you'd know. You could look it up and chart your path accordingly, or get someone else to do so. If you goofed up on your way, you would pull over at a gas station or convenience store, and abashedly ask for help. Sometimes you would consult the driver in the next car, or even some hapless chap on the street. Sometimes you'd get good advice, sometimes not. It was a crap shoot. And there was fun in that. No really, I promise. Of course, you have to understand that this was back when every nanosecond wasn't conceived of as the be-all-end-all crux to the rest of your life. It was okay to breathe, and I mean okay to breathe as the only thing you were doing, not breathing as a part of multitasking. But I digress. Back to the books. We also had the phone book, and granted we still do, as evidenced by the behemoth antiquated tome that was left on my doorstep just yesterday. But back in those days, when we wanted to call someone or a business, we consulted the white or yellow pages, respectively (we had books for both). There were also relevant adverts in the phone books, coupons if you will, by businesses listed in there. And it wasn't a coupon that you had to get ten friends to purchase as well in order to make it valid. No, you just had a coupon. And used it.

On my bedroom wall, I had a set of encyclopedias and year books. The former presented alphabetically and offered information on many topics. The latter offered synopses of historical events and junctures by year. I recall using them for research and general interest. When I had to write a paper for school, I would go to the library, and go through the course catalog (a big bureau of tiny drawers that had index cards with each book individually referenced). I would find the books that I thought might help me, then flip to the title page, and collect the information to create an appropriate bibliography. There were only a few variations on the theme of this task, depending upon whether the reference book was an encyclopedia, periodical or magazine, or general book. I might check the books out (which I might add, I was limited to 3 books and could keep them for but a week at a time), lug them home, and make my own index cards that summarized the information I needed to construct my paper. The research paper being a specific occasion, there were other times when I did not know something. If it wasn't in the encyclopedia, or on-hand somewhere nearby, I would have to ask another person, and hope that their knowledge base encompassed my query. If not, the search continued for another, wiser individual. The word "google" was not a verb at this time; merely a numerical representation. Now, of course, I love the ability to have information at my fingertips. I love that I can be independent in my pursuit to the answer of a query. With most of us carrying internet-ready PDA's, we have all become walking encyclopedias. Not surprisingly, this leads to much befuddlement on my part when someone calls to ask me something, the answer to which I don't know, and I have to reply, "I don't know. I can Google it for you?" Which, of course, they simply could have done themselves. Don't get me wrong, I love me the Google, and I love the instant access to information. But that knowledge pool and speed of answer are the very wonderful advances that manage to engender ignorance and sloth. Harsh? Maybe. Founded? Absolutely.

Perhaps this rant is a bit cynical for an inaugural post, and a bit Nelly-Naysayer, but let's just chock it up to nostalgia. Sure the methods by which we accomplished things were a bit more arduous, and took a bit more care and effort, but I figure it was a good weeding-out process. I miss the days when we weren't "on" all the time, when I didn't know where everyone was "checking into," or what they were doing at 3 a.m, when I wasn't missing a marketing opportunity by not tweeting... when it was okay to just breathe. Try it sometime. And after you do, call me to let me know how it felt. Call me. But not from your car because it was the only spare moment you had, and you wanted to maximize the use of your "wasted" time whilst stuck in traffic. No, call me when you aren't doing something else. Call me because you're choosing to use that time to call me.