Aint Technology Grand?

Today, my aunt, Della Ree, showed me a large, oval, cast iron pot with handles on each side and little feet below and asked me if I knew what its use had been. I didn't know. She said that my grandmother, many years ago, used it to boil her family's clothing to get stains out before scrubbing them on a washboard with home-made lye soap! OMG! I can't even imagine having to do that! But, back then, you did what you had to do and there was no technology to make it any easier.

I have recently been planning a future vacation to a state that my husband and I have never visited and it's half-way across the country. I have done all of the research on where to stay, where to eat, how to get there, places to see, things to do, and learned about the climate there, all via the internet. I remember planning trips when I was in my twenties, before everyone had their own personal computer. If you weren't a member of AAA, you were out of luck and in the dark. I often wonder how I managed my life without my computer.

Back in 1970, when I started my first job as a legal secretary, very few offices had copiers and ours was no exception. So, everything I typed had to be done in triplicate using the dreaded carbon paper. (I'm starting to feel ancient!) Anyway, it was imperative that I make no typographical errors on legal documents or someone could think that they had been altered after they were executed. I went through countless reams of paper that first year on the job due to typos. It was nightmarish starting the same documents over and over again, trying to not make a mistake and knowing I was going to eventually. Of course, my anxiety level was high every Monday through Friday. However, the up-side to all of this is that I became a very proficient typist. I often wonder how I managed to hold on to my job without a computer, a printer and a copier.

When I was a teenager, we listened to our music on a stereophonic record player. I had a big stack of 45 records and a bigger stack of 33 1/3 albums. The sound quality was actually pretty good too. But, just as I put together a great collection of records, along came 8-track tapes. We were thrilled with 8-tracks because you could now listen to the music of your choice in your car! Wow! For those of you too young to remember 8-tracks, and they are forgettable, you didn't miss much. They were big and boxy and would change tracks in the middle of songs. Which means, you'd be groovin' with the music and suddenly, right in the middle of a song, there would be silence, then loud clicking, then the music would resume. It could be a real mood-breaker if you were being romanced at the time.

At the age of 21, I bought myself a two-seater, convertible, Triumph, Spitfire sports car. I loved everything about it other than it didn't have a tape deck. So, I bought one and a neighbor boy installed it for me in my glove box, which was the only space in my tiny car that would accommodate it. Everything was fine for a few weeks until one day, as I drove toward downtown, smoke started pouring from the glove box. Understandably, I was terrified that my car was about to up in flames. After a moment of panic, I pulled a U-turn, drove two blocks to a fire station, ran inside and excitedly announced that my car was on fire in their parking lot. It turned out to be only a bad wire in the tape player that shorted out and there really wasn't a fire at all. The firemen had a good laugh and told me that it was the first time a fire had been brought to them.

Shortly after that, cassette tapes came along. They were so much better than 8-tracks. They were smaller and played through from beginning to end with no stops and no clicks. Of course, they were prone to hanging up inside the player, leaving you with a plastic cassette with miles of tape stringing out of it in a tangled mass. CDs followed and I really have no complaints about them. I love my CDs and hope they are around for a long, long time. I haven't graduated to MP3 players yet but I know one day I will.

Though I take my computer, my CDs, my state-of-the-art appliances, air conditioning, water from the tap, etc. for granted, when I stop to think about it all, I wonder how anyone managed without them. Then, I feel very fortunate and think, aint technology grand?