Today Comcast is working…
…in my area and my service comes and goes as it sees fit so this may take a while. I already learned that if you type a lot of stuff and then hit Publish while the service is down, not only doesn’t it work, but you lose whatever you’ve already written. So now I’m writing in my word processor. I may never get this published, but I’ll have it forever.
I have a whole computer that I keep because I don’t know how to get the stuff I have written off of it. I’ll keep that crap forever if I have to but it would be nice if it wasn’t in an old computer. They aren’t as easy to read as something in an old journal would be.
Before I had a computer, I had to write stuff down. Some of you might remember the old days when mail was in an envelope and had a stamp on it. Back in those days you were tethered to the wall when you spoke on the phone and a ride to the store was an actual getaway. No one knew where you were and no one could find you unless you wanted to be found. Milk was delivered every morning and if a kid was lucky, it would still be slightly frozen when mom poured it on the cereal.
That was such a long, long time ago but it seems like yesterday. Kids could play outside all day long and no one worried about crazy freaks stealing them. Our toys didn’t do much either but somehow we had fun with dolls that didn’t pee and plain old crayons…and only 16 of them. When I was a kid I always wanted that big box of crayons with the sharpener on the back so I bought myself one when I was about 34. I had that box of crayons (And I used them!) until a few of years ago when my grandchildren started to color. I was so sad to see my box go. One day I’ll buy a new box, maybe when these kids are too old for crayons which probably won’t be too far off. They go to coloring.com when they want to make a picture.
Coins seemed like real money and they actually were. Soda and candy bars where both a dime so you’d have change from a quarter after buying one of each. You could even get a pack of gum, they were only a nickel back then. I remember a trip back from a vacation that my family went on years ago. I had a nickel and I was holding onto it for miles and miles, waiting for my parents to stop for gas. That nickel was my chewing gum.
When we finally got to the gas station, a pack of gum had gone up to 7 cents. I didn’t have the 2 pennies so I had to take my nickel and get back in the car. We didn’t complain to our parents back then and we certainly wouldn’t have just popped up and said, “Can I have 2 cents?” Kids just didn’t do that. And you wouldn’t have found a penny just lying around, a penny was worth something. It’s hard to imagine that today, the keyboard people didn’t even see fit to add a cents sign to the options here so I had to spell out the word.
When I was in grade school, they actually graded you on penmanship. That’s because you had to be able to write so that people could read what you had written. Except for taking down phone messages, I rarely write at all anymore. I wonder how much import the schools put on penmanship today?
Writing a book literally meant writing a book. Can you imagine? That Tolstoy must have had one cramped up writing hand. Not to mention someone as prolific as Shakespeare. I get a sore right shoulder from using a simple mouse. The writers of old must have had some serious writer’s cramp.
They called my childhood the “Jet Age”. It was world full of the most modern conveniences. Everything was “touch button” and totally foreign to the older people. I had a great aunt who didn’t get plumbing until the 70’s. I must be old now because cell phones baffle me. I don’t know how they work and I don’t want to. I was the last American to buy a micro-wave and I’ll be the last one to carry a Blackberry. Or are they Blueberries? Something is blue…oh, blue tooth. Whatever.
The light on my modem is still off so I can’t put this up. I can’t even go to a newspaper and read today’s news. It’s hard to imagine a time when your only access to the world was the 30 minutes of the evening news. Other than that you only had the local news and your own neighborhood to occupy your minds. Who needs neighbors when you can sit in your own house and speak to the world?
Hhhhmmmm.
…in my area and my service comes and goes as it sees fit so this may take a while. I already learned that if you type a lot of stuff and then hit Publish while the service is down, not only doesn’t it work, but you lose whatever you’ve already written. So now I’m writing in my word processor. I may never get this published, but I’ll have it forever.
I have a whole computer that I keep because I don’t know how to get the stuff I have written off of it. I’ll keep that crap forever if I have to but it would be nice if it wasn’t in an old computer. They aren’t as easy to read as something in an old journal would be.
Before I had a computer, I had to write stuff down. Some of you might remember the old days when mail was in an envelope and had a stamp on it. Back in those days you were tethered to the wall when you spoke on the phone and a ride to the store was an actual getaway. No one knew where you were and no one could find you unless you wanted to be found. Milk was delivered every morning and if a kid was lucky, it would still be slightly frozen when mom poured it on the cereal.
That was such a long, long time ago but it seems like yesterday. Kids could play outside all day long and no one worried about crazy freaks stealing them. Our toys didn’t do much either but somehow we had fun with dolls that didn’t pee and plain old crayons…and only 16 of them. When I was a kid I always wanted that big box of crayons with the sharpener on the back so I bought myself one when I was about 34. I had that box of crayons (And I used them!) until a few of years ago when my grandchildren started to color. I was so sad to see my box go. One day I’ll buy a new box, maybe when these kids are too old for crayons which probably won’t be too far off. They go to coloring.com when they want to make a picture.
Coins seemed like real money and they actually were. Soda and candy bars where both a dime so you’d have change from a quarter after buying one of each. You could even get a pack of gum, they were only a nickel back then. I remember a trip back from a vacation that my family went on years ago. I had a nickel and I was holding onto it for miles and miles, waiting for my parents to stop for gas. That nickel was my chewing gum.
When we finally got to the gas station, a pack of gum had gone up to 7 cents. I didn’t have the 2 pennies so I had to take my nickel and get back in the car. We didn’t complain to our parents back then and we certainly wouldn’t have just popped up and said, “Can I have 2 cents?” Kids just didn’t do that. And you wouldn’t have found a penny just lying around, a penny was worth something. It’s hard to imagine that today, the keyboard people didn’t even see fit to add a cents sign to the options here so I had to spell out the word.
When I was in grade school, they actually graded you on penmanship. That’s because you had to be able to write so that people could read what you had written. Except for taking down phone messages, I rarely write at all anymore. I wonder how much import the schools put on penmanship today?
Writing a book literally meant writing a book. Can you imagine? That Tolstoy must have had one cramped up writing hand. Not to mention someone as prolific as Shakespeare. I get a sore right shoulder from using a simple mouse. The writers of old must have had some serious writer’s cramp.
They called my childhood the “Jet Age”. It was world full of the most modern conveniences. Everything was “touch button” and totally foreign to the older people. I had a great aunt who didn’t get plumbing until the 70’s. I must be old now because cell phones baffle me. I don’t know how they work and I don’t want to. I was the last American to buy a micro-wave and I’ll be the last one to carry a Blackberry. Or are they Blueberries? Something is blue…oh, blue tooth. Whatever.
The light on my modem is still off so I can’t put this up. I can’t even go to a newspaper and read today’s news. It’s hard to imagine a time when your only access to the world was the 30 minutes of the evening news. Other than that you only had the local news and your own neighborhood to occupy your minds. Who needs neighbors when you can sit in your own house and speak to the world?
Hhhhmmmm.
posted by Meg Kelso | 8:58 AM
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