Just came across the umpteenth post about things that baby boomers grew up with that are now or soon going the way of the dodo bird. Things such as photo albums, faxes, voicemails, checks, cash, manual transmissions, fax machines, landlines, newspapers, and many more.
What’s the fascination with this? Is it misplaced nostalgia? Are any of us really going to miss couches wrapped in plastic or the yellow pages? The good China has been disappearing for a long time now and not many of us shed any tears over that.
Handwritten letters made the list and honestly it is astonishing that anyone would still take the time to handwrite just about anything other than a grocery list (and you can do that in Notes!). Shocker – only 24 states require cursive writing instruction. That means we are probably no more than a decade away from school kids thinking that cursive writing is a foreign language.
Ever wonder why when you fill out medical forms there’s a space for home phone and a space for mobile? Who has a landline still? Boomers, of course, and we’re the ones filling out quite a few medical forms these days.
When my mother reached 100 years of age, she wanted me to help her make a list of the events and technology she witnessed in her lifetime. No luddite her, she mastered email at age 94. Computers, cell phones, rockets that orbit the earth, self-driving cars – she had seen it all. But she started out her childhood with a hand-cranked Victrola (and late in life admitted she put the cat on it once…maybe twice).
I only mention her amazement at what she witnessed in her lifetime because baby boomers can and should be equally astonished at what’s transformed our world in our lifetimes. Now we stand at the cusp of the artificial intelligence technology that will transform medicine, science, capitalism and climate. Honestly, many of us are more fearful than optimistic of what AI can do, but it’s here and it’s out of the box.
Nothing left for us to do but make lists of things we grew up with that are biting the dust. You go first. By the way, the illustration of the dodo bird was created with….AI.
Jay Harrison is a writer and creative consultant for DesignConcept. His newest mystery novel, Rio Puerco Demise is available on Amazon. His first mystery novel, Head Above Water, is also available on Amazon. But that’s not all. You can also purchase the Best of BoomSpeak on Amazon.
Billy hunkered for stray marbles on the hard-packed, wild blackberry-vined vacant lot beside his house. He scoured the ground intently, hoping to duplicate a find from the week before – a ruby-red, creamy-swirled Aggie. At six, Billy was too young to shoot marbles with the older kids, who sometimes left one hiding beneath the blackberry leaves.
Many times, I sit in a room and wonder how life manages to hold itself together with its simmering stew of people. The first thing you probably want to know is whether this affected my mind.
Got a bad attitude about aging? The aches and pains wearing you down? Afraid you won’t make it past 80? Is that what’s bugging you bubby?
Last summer I discovered that death plus time can bring about a certain miracle: it restores to us the way they were.
Sitting in the waiting room at the auto dealership recently: some folks studied cell phones, one man scoped the newspaper, one lady knit, one guy just looked straight ahead. All in a holding pattern: waiting in the waiting room. Can’t go anywhere when your car’s in the shop. We were all immobilized, for the moment. How many other times have I felt stuck on pause—awaiting? Just all of my life. Like for mouth-open dentist prods. Or knee taps in the doctor’s office. Or final grades to graduate…hopefully. It’s all about timing, waiting for the right moment to finally arrive. And if we have been good kids, we’ve learned important life-lessons like, “Children should be seen and not heard”? But now that I’m a grown-up, when do we finally get to be seen, if not heard? I’m not a child, anymore. Do we always need to respect this semi-robotic, ‘shh, be still’ state? Isn’t there a time when we can finally ask, to take the initiative, to move?
