Reflections on my 43rd Lap Around the Sun

Today, June 15th 2006, marks the 43rd anniversary of the day Dr Shernlank (I am not making that name up) caught me as my mother pushed me screaming into this world. A lot has happened to the world in 43 years.

If you're about my age, you probably know how to do long division, but you'd rather use a calculator. You may know how to use a sliderule, but you still prefer a calculator.

You remember stacking records on a spindle on a turntable, where they'd drop down to play. You had to turn them over to play the other side. 45's had a big hole in the middle you had to fill with this little plastic thingy.

My mother made iced tea with tea bags in a big pot, she'd pour it into empty instant coffee jars and put it in the fridge.

Speaking of instant coffee, this stuff is the reason I hated coffee until I discovered that some people actually brewed coffee.

Boys played with toy guns. This wasn't cause for concern by parents, teachers or school administrators. Girls played with dolls. Boys and girls seldom played together unless the girl was a tomboy, then she was just another boy. Boys thought girls were yucky, girls thought boys were yucky, the boys would outgrow this but the girls wouldn't.

You were expected to get dirty when you played, especially if the play involved Tonka trucks in the yard.

The cure for hyperactivity was to go outside and play.

Pong was the extent of home video games. You could go to the Arcade at the Mall to play video games for a quarter a play.

TV had seven working channels, 2, 4, 5, 7, 9, 11 and 13. Channel 7 had the 4:30 movie every day.

There were no video rental stores because there were no video tapes or DVD's, if you wanted to see a movie you went to the movies or you waited for it to come on TV.

Wrestling was on channel 42 or 47 UHF, the announcers only spoke Spanish.

The grammer school principal had a paddle. If you misbehaved you went up on the stage during Assembly, assumed the position, and got your butt whacked in front of everyone. The pain was bad, the humiliation was worse, and the thought of what your parents would do to you when you got home was worst of all.

Teachers didn't care about your self esteem, if you didn't learn the material you got a failing grade. If you got too many failing grades you got left back.

There were no mini-vans, there were a few SUVs that were basically short pick-up trucks with seats in back. Families had station wagons. There were no car seats, and nobody wore seatbelts.

The first computer hard-drive I ever saw advertized was in a Radio Shack catalog, it held 8.4 MB (not GB) and cost $4,995. It was about the size of the CPU case on my current computer. Dell currently lists a 1,000 GB (or one terabyte if you prefer) drive for $1,000.

Most cars didn't have air conditioning, power windows or power locks. You couldn't unlock the car from a distance, you had to use the key, but few people bothered to lock the car anyway. Lots of people just left the keys in the ignition. Nobody had car alarms.

Most bikes had one speed, some had three, some had five, and the most any bike had was ten. Nobody wore a helmet to ride a bike. These same people often didn't hold the handlebars while they rode. Bikes came in boys and girls types.

The Star Trek communicator was a futuristic piece of equipment, not something everyone had on their belt or in their pocket or purse.

We landed on the moon. We were going to Mars. In 2001 we'd be going to Jupiter (Arthur C. Clarke and Stanley Kubrick said so!).

The Russians wanted to nuke us, but didn't dare because they knew we'd nuke them back. Mutually Assured Destruction kept everyone safe.

In High School we discected once-living frogs, grasshoppers and earthworms. Some classes did clams too, those students vowed never to eat another clam. There were periodic small explosions in the Chemistry lab, and there were often noxious smells coming from there.

On Sunday mornings we read the funnies. Mom made dinner early on Sunday, then there was usually a movie on TV in the afternoon.

There were no CDs, DVDs, VCRs or home computers. People bought TVs and stereos, not home entertainment systems. We read books made of paper.

Yes, a lot has changed. The world is better in some ways, worse in others, different in many. We've come further than we'd ever dreamed and failed to accomplish many of the things we expected.