Chris Belland's - "Hindsights & Insights"
Sunday, July 25, 2010
Reminiscing about the old days? Guess what? You're living in them

By CHRIS BELLAND Citizen Columnist

My brother and I used to kid around with our parents about the "olden days" when they would talk about how they grew up. Their memories were of things like the evolution of aviation, the film industry and the proliferation of electronics and communication. They grew up in an age when some people still used horses as a primary means of travel. It seemed odd and quaint. Yet today the things we consider to be from the "olden days" aren't really so distant in the past.

When I was growing up in the early 1950s (and boy it doesn't seem like too long ago, either), I would get up in the morning in an unairconditioned house. I would get my "flattop" (how many of you remember those?) straightened out with some Butch Wax. I would probably go into the kitchen and get the milk left on the step by the milkman. I would call my friend using a dial telephone, and my mother might pack a sandwich for me wrapped in wax paper. As I left the house, I very well might hear my father pecking away on a manual typewriter that used typewriter ribbon and sheets of carbon paper sandwiched between the pages to make copies.

Later that day, on the way to the grocery store, we might stop at a service station where someone came out and checked our oil and radiator while he filled our tank with gasoline that cost 35 cents a gallon. When we got to the store, before someone bagged and carried our groceries to the car, they gave us S&H Green Stamps. Later that night, if it was a weekend, we might go to a drive-in theater to watch a movie, which was always preceded by a newsreel and a cartoon. Sound odd and quaint? Just talking about it does, but think of the things that are disappearing even as you read this.

When was the last time you saw a drive-in theater? In the late '50s, there were more than 4,000, but today there are less than 400 in the entire United States, and I can't remember the last time I saw a cartoon before a movie, much less a newsreel. Today I download movies on my cell phone. It's pretty easy to predict the fact that personal checks are on their way out in favor of debit cards. I'm even paying bills on the Internet.

My first camera was a Kodak Brownie and I remember the disposable flashbulbs. There was a certain "Christmas morning" anticipation going to the film store to get your processed pictures. Today, you take your pictures with your cell phone or use a digital camera with a built-in flash. Instead of going to a film store, you can print them at home or just keep them on your computer in a digital album.

Even Thomas Edison's incandescent light bulb is on the same list as buggy whips. The federal government has recognized the efficiency of the new compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs) and there is an energy bill in the offing that will phase out incandescent light bulbs altogether in the next decade.

Computers and, for that matter, your cell phone are holding the door open for the United States Postal Service to leave since it continues to raise prices and cut service. How many letters did you write this year? We are getting more and more into the habit of e-mails, online services, including of course advertising, which is replacing the expensive and not-so-environmentally-friendly magazine. Instead of going to stand in line at the post office, we now pretty much call UPS or FedEx to come and get the package from us and have it delivered the next morning.

While I hate to read on a computer screen, unless they reinvent themselves, the Yellow Pages industry and newspapers are going to have a tough time surviving in the next 10 or 20 years. You are probably reading words from a caveman. Just like me to get into a business that won't need me.

Even the things we thought were so novel at one time are fading into oblivion at an increasing rate. We don't use dial-up Internet access any more, phone land lines and pay phones are becoming a thing of the past in favor of cell phones. Remember the first time you excitedly played something on your VCR? Well, don't look for it in your entertainment center. It's probably already gone, as are answering machines, ham radios and analogue television. They're in the same pile with calculators, rolodexes, Wite-Out, typewriters, fountain pens and records. Someone was right when they said, "Time and tide wait for no man," but I'd like just a moment to be nostalgic.

Chris Belland's Hindsights & Insights column appears here on Sundays. Belland also writes a biweekly column on environmental issues, which runs in our Sunday magazine, Solares Hill. All of his previous columns are available on his blog: hindsightsandinsights.blogspot.com. Contact Chris at cbelland@keysnews.com.