Sometime in the late 1950s, I went with my family, including an aunt and uncle to Disneyland. It had only been open a few years and was the object of lust for every kid I knew. With the exception of two brothers in my neighborhood, whose father worked for Technicolor and secured industry passes on opening day for them, I knew very few other kids who had been. Because I had an East Coast uncle who was in the media, we received will-call passes and 10 books of tickets, including two of the coveted E-tickets.
Sitting in the horse-drawn streetcar at the end of Main street, my Aunt Dorothy and I began to chat. She made a joke or two about not sitting too close to the horse's behind. From that, we soon were discussing all the changes in transportation over the last century. From horse-drawn vehicles to cars, dirt roads to freeways even paved streets, and sidewalks. To myself, I began to wonder how many things that no longer exist my Aunt must have seen in her lifetime.
I apply this thinking to my own life now. Along with transportation, we must add all the changes in the way people communicate now. It's difficult for young people today to imagine a life without computers and cell phones. It is not uncommon during a class discussion on literature for a well-intentioned 16-year-old to ask, "why didn't he/she just use their cell phone and call for help. The frame of reference just isn't there.
Sometimes I marvel at the thought of going to college and grad school using only a typewriter. I taught almost 20 of my 34 years in the classroom without a computer. Although the experience is lost on those born after 1995 or so, it still amazes me.
All manner of media is very different than 25 years ago. From digital photography to streaming movies at home, our social history is rife with the impact of these changes.
A couple of years ago, my niece's oldest child, about 12 years old at the time went with me on an ice-cream run. She was overjoyed to sit in the cab of my pick-up. Wanting to roll down the passenger side window a bit, she was soon puzzled. "Where's the button to press?" she asked.
"There is none," I responded.
"We'', how do you get the window down?"
"Watch," I said. Then proceed to reach over and turn the little hand crank.
"Wow, that's so cool," she said, never having seen a window go down this way. I explained that it's been done that way for decades.
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