A former coworker and social media friend recently commented that his young daughter, born in this century, periodically reminds him that he was alive in the “nineteens.” Having just crossed the threshold into another year of life at the time, the thought of being alive in the “nineteens” stuck with me. My paternal grandparents were born in the 1890’s, and as a child I was always a bit astonished that someone I knew was old enough to live in the previous century.
Now I’m one of those relatives from the previous century.
Although my body periodically reminds me that I’m no longer “low mileage,” my mind is in total denial. I’m usually successful at convincing myself that one is only as old as one feels, but occasionally I experience the unexpected rude awakening. The most recent reality check was my trip to the local hospital for a routine colonoscopy. I’d had my first baseline at 40, and I was a little overdue for the 10-year follow up. An EKG machine was the first hint of a change in the “routine.”
With six you get egg roll. At 50 you get an EKG, a heart monitor, and oxygen!
Some of my favorite relatives tell me I don’t look my age. I don’t feel my age. But my friend’s comment makes me wonder if the youngsters in my own family ever think about how our childhoods compare. They might be amazed to know I was five years old before our family owned a car with air conditioning. “Climate control” options in the home were limited to the settings on the window air conditioner, if you were fortunate enough to have one, and a dialed thermostat for the furnace which was never quite accurate. Most homes had original hardwood floors, and every family we knew covered those floors with carpeting. We listened to our favorite music on vinyl discs called records, until the advent of the 8-track and cassette tape. We had rotary dial telephones. Mobile communication consisted of walkie-talkies or citizen’s band radios.
Breaker one-three… this is Little Snoopy… come back…
I was a teenager before our family had a color television or a microwave, both operated with knobs rather than touch pads. The first personal computer arrived on the market the year I graduated high school. We hand-wrote letters on paper, wrote out checks to pay our bills, and sent both to their destinations in stamped envelopes from a mailbox at the end of the driveway. Text was something we read from a printed page. A tablet was bound sheets of paper we used for writing. “Google” wasn’t a word. Our searches were limited to the dictionary and a 26-volume encyclopedia set my parents borrowed from friends whose kids had already graduated from high school.
So much for not feeling my age!
I am amazed by the advances I have seen in my lifetime. The information superhighway brings a person from across the globe as close as the neighbor across the street. I can read my favorite blog, listen to music, and research any topic from the same device I use to call my husband to see what time he’d like to eat dinner. As I wonder what new inventions I’ll see in my lifetime, I cannot imagine what the youngsters of today might see in theirs.
Who knows… one of them might live long enough to be reminded by another youngster that he was alive in the “twenties.”