The Buggy Whips Of My Generation

Time marches on.


Technological advancements keep coming at us faster and faster these days, and things I took for granted as part of my past, present, and future have faded from common use seemingly overnight. They are the buggy whips of the next generation -- something to be curious about and amused by.


Some examples:


Typewriters. I don't regret this, as I thrill at never having to put "white out" on a computer screen. If you don't know what "white out" is, ask your granddad. Don't even get me started on the disappearance of carbon paper. But, damn, they were mechanical marvels, weren't they? I still have the one that got me through high school and part of college. It's about 70 years old and still works. I'd like to see my kids use it -- "You mean you have to push this big round thing back at the end of each line, with that big chrome bar? What's that bell mean? I can't change fonts or type size?" What a hoot..... Dear Bill Gates: Wanna bet your fortune that Windows Vista won't work in a quarter of that amount of time? Oh, I forgot. It doesn't work now.


Fan Belts. Not those serpentine things the new cars have that loop and roll around the engine bay running half a dozen accessories; the good ol' American V-belt. Used on millions of cars for three-quarters of a century. I needed one not long ago, and I had to visit three parts stores before I found one. Stock up. You've been warned.



White Wall Tires. Now, admittedly, they've been uncool for decades. No hotrodder of my generation would have been caught in the high school parking lot sporting a set of white walls. That didn't stop Detroit from selling millions of cars with them in the 70's, 80's, and even 90's.

But the final nail in the coffin for white walls came just this past January, on inaugural day of all times. I'm watching the preparations for the inaugural parade, and they show the new limo that President Obama will use. No white walls. No white wall tires? Every presidential car all the way back to, and including, Roosevelt's had them. Certainly, an end of an era.



Teeter-Totters. The safety police put an end to this playground staple. The same goes for monkey bars and really good swing sets. They've disappeared from schools and parks, replaced with nice, safe, plastic playground equipment that our little darlings can't hurt themselves on. Jeez, what fun would that be? Not only can your kid not be allowed to fall, they can't even burn themselves on the hot steel come summertime. We're raising a generation of wimps, people!



CDs: I've whined before in my blog about the demise of vinyl records, a format that lasted 60 years. Now the CD seems destined for the relic list after only 30. (30! Really? That long!?)Sorry, but at least the compact disc has a tactile sensibility to it -- downloading music just seems to reinforce the belief that music has no long-term value; something to be enjoyed in the moment and then forgotten. Not to mention the lost art of cover illustration and "liner notes".



The Photo Album: My wife tried to give a spare photo album to my youngest daughter yesterday, but she didn't have any use for it. "All my photos are in the computer," she explained. "But what happens if your computer crashes?" I asked. Wouldn't they all be lost?

"They're all on (named an online file server)" Great. Try handing that down from generation to generation, will you? See my above comment regarding Windows Vista.



Punctuation: I was shocked to learn a while back that we aren't supposed to hit the space bar twice at the end of a sentence any longer. It's obsolete. WTF?



Cursive Handwriting: I bet my generation is the last to know how to write a capital "Q" in cursive. Then again, I bet 99% of my generation has forgotten. A small matter, but, hey... which brings me to.. Penmanship: Note to the young -- Texting is not writing. Typing is really not writing either. The ability to write (not print) in a clear, legible hand is just about a dead art for anyone under fifty, especially men. I always considered myself poor at penmanship, and so readily adopted the typewriter, so I'm as guilty as the next guy. (Want to see a good example of how things rapidly change? In proofing this blog entry, "Texting" is not in this computer's software as a word.)