When I was a kid we had Soda Pop. We got it out of machines that you opened the lid, put in your nickel and snaked it through a maze to get it out. Our advanced technology was that the machine had a built in thing to get the cap off.

We had a phone that was a black box on the wall. I could ring for my cousin to go play after I weeded the garden and fed the chickens and cleaned the poop out of the coop.

We actually had a set of encyclopedias to look information up. As poor as we were that was a priority for my Dad to give his kids. You can look up the word encyclopedia on your phone if you don't know what those were.

Now I've got to be around a generation raised on computers and cell phones who think that food actually comes from the grocery store. In the paper the other day they were quoting Gen Zer's who thought that email was annoying and were refusing to use it. Not their fault. How are they supposed to know there was once more out there? Stuff you could hold, touch, thumb through.


I feel lucky. I have a cell phone. I like email because my clients can't take back anything they said in one. But I also have seen the world before technology ruined it. That was the best.

I was raised dirt poor. Like my Dad actually grew up in a house with a dirt floor. All the Mormons in the small pioneer farming town drank coffee because that was all they had to take the edge off hunger sometimes. These were not today's Mormons. These people still helped each other build their houses and share their gardens.

I'm just not coping with America of 2021 very well. All I see is finger-pointing and looking for someone else to make their life better.

I went to work at 12 so I could for the first time buy new clothes and not wear somebody else's. I was tall by then and already wearing my Great Uncle's. Embarrassing. Good job on a ranch paid a buck an hour. Couldn't believe my luck. Couldn't get to Fred.M. Nye fast enough. We didn't have an HR department on the ranch. No one to complain to except the cows. I don't remember seeing all the selfishness that I see everywhere all the time now. Nothing is enough. No progress will do.

I wish everyone had had a black box on the wall. Could even be used without thumbs. And, the black boxes came from America. Imagine that.

Where do cell phones come from? America? haha.

So now for us with hearing aids, you can get a version that is controlled by an App on your phone instead of just a quick touch to the ear. I'm keeping the ones I've got. Complication is the new simplification.


P.S. I don't consider that the brief mention of coffee made this post on topic. It's on topic because I am white.

Being in the same boat I can also remember when young people looked you in the face when you spoke to them and conversation was not an interruption to looking at a phone. But the I don't have a cell phone.

I have a cell phone for emergencies. Only one person has the number.

I see them all busy taking pictures and videos of everything they see---never just looking at directly in awe. Not about the experience of seeing but showing your friends you saw is what is important.

I just wish they weren't all looking at them while they drive. Or is that just L.A.?

I have constant access to a digitalized media archive. A specific newspaper. I focus on the time period in Sweden called Folkhemmet (1930s to 1990s). Folkhemmet is sort of a name on the swedish welfare state.

I read old newspapers and compare with today. It makes you think when you find a newspaper from the middle of the 1980s and a food chain store have bought almost half the page to tell with an advertisment that today they have a special price on sugar. Strösocker.

I love reading newspapers and exploring old times and forgotten news. One perspective is that the old modernistic times were much more easier to understand. I guess times were easier but there was a struggle with conformity in another way.

Found this spanish artists name in a small ad from the year of 1980. He played at a small swedish bar/night club during the summer. Never heard of the artist before.

J C Baretto https://youtu.be/f4OH0ZaEezk

Nice. Thanks for the link. I live in fear of the day I wouldn't have a real newspaper to read. Stacks of old magazines make me happy as well.

Anther worry with technology as everything must be INSTANT now:

"According to research, our attention span has markedly decreased in just 15 years. In 2000, it was 12 seconds. Now, 15 years later, it's shrunk significantly to 8.25 seconds. In fact, scientists reckon we now have shorter attention spans than goldfish, who are able to focus on a task or object for 9 seconds."

Can you imagine the hell some would go through if they had to use a rotary phone? haha. But then they are even watching movies on phones now. As an artist I can't even imagine how much of the visual beauty that a great movie can bring is missed.

New times aint better. My mother invested in a new Microsoft Office package and I helped her install it. Well, it was a download, installed on a browser, on chromebook. Everything is also saved on a cloud. My blood pressure went up.

I have an office package on DVD from the year of 2007 or so and it works great. But have not installed it because the new computer do not have a DVD so I write on Open office instead. It works just as the package from 2007.

The old computers were more like type writers.

You needlessly worry, D&D; smart people insist that Google makes everyone smarter.

What’s lost is the power to bring a world out of boredom, to see and hear Combray from the crumbs of madeleines and tea.

Like you, I cherish my pre-tech childhood, when sheer boredom prompted some of the best and brightest days, when we weren’t allowed in the house until called in for supper. The best nights were those the parents plain forgot to call us in. When we still looked up and wondered about the stars.

Does Google make us smarter or just give us more amunition? haha.

Nice reminiscence, Human. I used to sneak out of the house and sit in a canal across the lane and watch the stars for hours. So black our patch of the sky in the mountains. Not so much here in L. A.

Done & Done Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Anther worry with technology as everything must be INSTANT now:

This, and it seems like the younger generation knows no other way and can't improvise worth a shit. If a wrench gets thrown into their works, the therapy dog had better be nearby.

A while back I was at a car dealership. A frantic call came into the service dept. The millennial gal on the other end was losing her shit. The battery in her key fob for her car had gone dead so pushing the button wouldn't unlock her car. She was locked out, crying, helpless, and near a breakdown. I sat there and listened as the technician talked through inserting the key into the keyhole in the door, turning it, and unlocking the car. Amazing.

Hahaha ha. You made my day with that. Glad someone could walk her through it though.

And, is there a Therapy Dog App in case you don't have your own therapy dog?

Have to admit though, the younger ones at work are good to me when it comes to the phone stuff. Still, they like to make fun of me kiddingly which I like.

I got a new car not too long ago and your post made me realize I'd be hard pressed to figure out how to get the fob to release the key. Necessary knowledge for sure.

Do you guys remember, back in your teens and early 20s, what you thought, generally speaking, about people who were the ages you are now?

If you do, is there any difference between the certainty of your feelings, now vs then?

I like to imagine that there is a platform of "Objectivity" to which enlightened beings may ascend. Of course there isn't, not really. Whatever pretense we make regarding "Objectivity" is just that, pretense.

I suspect that if any emotion is 'feel-able' after we die, a Bell-Shaped-Curve can be plotted, in which the middle of the curve will be, "Yeah, on average, being alive was okay". Negative and Positive feelings will then shape away, to form the outline of the bell.


Cada quien habla de la feria segun le fue en ella.

Tanta sabiduria, Che Pibe! A veces solo quiero creer que la vida larga y variada tiene algun valor.

Tu eres tu propio juez; ten piedad de tu alma.

elderolddog Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Tu eres tu propio juez; ten piedad de tu alma.
Es igual aqui! Lo siento much los fallutos de este dia

I feel the same way that you do, Done & Done about America 2021.

I remember when young people treated older folks with respect; in fact, in my hubby’s culture, kids were expected to stand up and at least acknowledge their older relatives whenever they came over and entered the room.

I see people sitting next to each other in a restaurant and you would think they were strangers with each other, being so occupied with texting someone else.

Hard honest work has been replaced by entitled attitudes.

Growing up, we never had a dishwasher or other wonderful appliances of the new age. What lawn we did have was watered by hand. No sewer system, no gas heating, but I thought I was the richest person on earth because of the beauty of nature where we lived. We had neighbors but they weren’t nearby.

I enjoyed my roller skates which were the kind that had a lock and key and you could adjust it to your foot size.
A delicious hamburger at the Cotton Bottom Inn was only 25 cents.

Come to think of it, I really didn’t mind being confined to our home last year.

Visited an american style BBQ-house on Kungsholmen in Stockholm a couple of years ago. A large american family, around eight people, (tourists) ate a dinner, as soon they were finished and the bill were payed everybody picked up their phone and went online. It was instant.

I thought you were going to say theypicked up and left. Generally Americans do not dine, they eat and leave. Europeans going out tend to make an evening of a dining experience, spending most of the evening in eating, drinking, and conversation.

> Come to think of it, I really
> didn’t mind being confined to
> our home last year.

Yeah! I’ve been in hog Heaven!!

Yes. Had those same skates. Heaven.


I wrote what I wrote because I remembered as a young twenty something a friend of mine came home with me from BYU and we sat on my great aunt's porch with a near 100 year old neighbor from across the creek whose parents settle the valley and we listened to them for hours about what had been. The conversation was brilliant. Riveting, even.

The constant judgement I feel now makes me want to be known for who I really am and not lumped together with a group I have nothing in common with by people on their phones who believe their media access makes them know me. Fine line between wise and know it all---you know?

So what I like about RFM is hearing from people like you.

And thus, the title--Cranky Old Man. I do not expect to be understood.

Had them,too. Played havoc with the soles of my shoes.

D&D, you are white, and dare I say, delightsome.

Thank you for these beautiful memories. :)

I'm sensitive about the age thing so usually avoid it. But I will say that I learned to type on a sweet little machine called a typewriter.

I love old typewriters so much I collect them. And yes, as said above, the first computers were just like fancy typewriters. I found them easy to transition to. I could even teach myself HTML with little trouble so I could produce a series of newsletters that looked pretty damn fine.

Fast forward: Upon the advent of the cloud my brain exploded. Where is the cloud I kept asking my younger sibs. They laughed.

I haven't progressed as well since then with all the newfangled stuff. It's not just that it's new or advanced but largely, in my world and for my needs, not all that essential.

I've always had a passion for photography. Absolutely love real pictures that you can hold and gaze at and appreciate the artistry and technology (yes, old, but still the best). I collect black and white photos - crazy about them. To me they appear 3D, which fascinates me, unlike the flat images of the everyday cell phone.

I recently saw a program about the first photographic images (mid-1800s or so) of the British Royal Family. The very first known, and extant, photo was of Prince Albert, Queen Victoria's husband. They went on to take pictures with the Queen and the couple's children, some of which have survived to date. By means of a chemical fluid the photographic image appeared on glass and it took over a minute for the image to appear. The narrator of the documentary hazarded a guess that perhaps that was why QV looks so grim in her photos - she had to stand perfectly still for an uncomfortably long spell in order to take a clear picture, without changing expressions or moving even slightly. It was the first time that most British people had seen their monarch. That wasn't all that long ago! Her photographer went on to record her through the years, always in her widow's weeds to the point that apparently the public grew tired of seeing a grim-faced Queen in head-to-toe black in perpetuity.

I collect old cameras as well as old photos (and typewriters). Count them among my treasures.

Even if I do take pics with my phone (my last choice) I still take it along to my camera shop guy to get the photos "developed" so I can have something concrete to hold and include in my multitude of photo albums.

I do try to keep up with inevitable changes but am slow wrt computers, phones and cameras. Gotta dash - need to check my answering machine, haha.

(Thanks for a great OP, D&D. And Human, for "wonder[ing] about the stars". And everybody, for your interesting perspectives).



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/14/2021 05:19PM by Nightingale.

I earned my living for many years literally banging away on a typewriter,using whatever finger was closest to the key, I use the same heavy fingered technique on a computer keyboard but unlike the typewriter the letters on the keys disappear after a couple of months.Don't ask me about getting an accurate sentence on a tablet.

Ha, I've noticed, kentish. It's only because part of my job requires obsessive proofreading.

Me too with the disappearing letters from the keyboard. Good thing my fingers are trained to know which keys are which without looking. Letters? Who needs letters? :)

Good thing RfM mods don't take points away for misspellings and typos.

Ah,but I have no defense for not reading before I post Just too anxious to get my thoughts down.

Ah. But at least you have thoughts.

Including and Oliver 5 and a WW2 era Royal portable. I like to think about who the first owners must have been. I only have six, but the problem is I also collect toy trains, toy cars, telephones, radios, sewing machine attachments, old magazines, watches, clocks, clocks, clocks...
It's only a matter of time before I'm either on Antiques Roadshow or HOARDERS: BURIED ALIVE.

I usually don't have it nearby and can't remember where it is. I take it with me when I drive places and when I walk my dogs. My daughter knows that if she calls and I don't answer (which is seldom and she is always shocked if I do) that I'll call her back soon.

My boyfriend doesn't like that, but I explained to him that my therapist back when my husband left told me that people can use phones to abuse you. Husband's mother called me a lot and kept me on the phone one time for 8 hours. The therapist said STOP ANSWERING THE PHONE. And I did. I don't like being "leashed." It was nice in the day when the only way to contact you was on the house phone.

I worked at Thiokol when they were going through the transition. We still had 1959 typewriters when I started and we used liquid paper (I usually had it splashed all over me). Then they started getting Selectrics. I love Selectrics. I had a typewriter that you could put on save mode and then fix the errors and have it retype the document itself. It sounded like a grain harvester. And then just as I got married and was pregnant with twins, they brought in the computer for me to learn on. Didn't like it much. I had too much work to slowly figure it out on the computer. I left before I learned it well, but within a year, I was on a computer doing medical transcription and I've been on one since.

I don't have a computer with the cloud and I have 3 computers. I chose not to buy one like that. My computer I do all my work on now has what is it? It is a refurbished HP that has an old program on it and I can't think what it is, but it is old. Best computer I've ever had. My boyfriend bought it for me at least 10 years ago.

I hate phones. I hate people always on phones. My boyfriend has a watch with his phone on it. We're walking through the store and it tells him how fast his heart rate is and how many calories he's burned.

It is all a little too much. For a girl who was raised doing farm work, I miss the wide open spaces that are disappearing. Too many people. My sister lives in the country with a herd of cows in the field next to her house. They look in the front window. I love it. Me, of all people. My grandfather would be proud.

My grandparents born between 1880 and 1903 had much of the same sentiments.

One grandfather would never talk on the phone. Period.

The other said it was the worst invention because you couldn't keep women folk off of it.

The same grandfather however thought satellite TV was the greatest. It had a western channel!

To think they saw the first automobiles, airplanes, radios, televisions and more.

When we were young and no remote control, my dad would call one of us in to change the channel for him. He was a farmer and a school teacher and he worked HARD, so no big deal, BUT he always said, "Find me a John Wayne western" when we had 3 channels. He'd laugh. He said it every time.

Now as my TV by my computer doesn't have many channels, I turn it to the western channel on weekends as there is nothing on any other channel.

Bulletin:

I have enjoyed the trips down memory lane. However, phones weren't really the focus.


I wrote what I wrote because I wish to be seen as an individual.

As mostly all people do, I assume. I am not who many have decided I am.




More people could benefit by replacing the word all with the word some. Often. Not going to happen though.

We are ALL exactly the same, except for our differences.

But take away the differences, and we're ALL the same!!


...except for the outliers, but we prefer you not think about us. And don't pretend to be one. We have a very strong union!

So many searching for how we are all alike. Even Maya Angelou wrote a poem about it. I worry about being too much alike.

You need not worry about that, EOD. As soon as "they" finished you "they" said, "Man. This one has to be a one-off. Break the molds. Quick. A little goes a long way." Don't ever change---like you could.

Done & Done Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> We had a phone that was a black box on the wall.
===============================

Best thing with that, is you couldn't drop it in the toilet
-- or at least it would take some determination

And if you did drop it in the toilet, it would have required way too much rice to dry it out. :)(

Within the past couple of weeks I have made email contact with someone in Canada I have not seen for more than 50 years. He grew up on a street one over from where I grew up in London. We have similar backgrounds and had similar experiences growing up. It has been terrific talking about those days, shared experiences and catching up on long ago people we knew and sharing what we know of them since. Biggest take away is that it was a different time on a different planet in a galaxy far, far away. Only the memories remain.

The generations before us cranky old people complained how we were spoiled and clueless because we didn't know how to churn butter, plow a field, work in a mine, or walk 20 miles to school, uphill both ways, in a blizzard, without shoes.

Haha. And now I have finally realized they were right!

Every older generation has been nostalgic about the past, and viewed the next generation as not being up to snuff, for all of human history. They have invariably been wrong. Fortunately the old get tired of the rant and go back to rearranging their sock drawer.

The future belongs to the young. Of the ones that I know, they are a lot more clued in at an earlier age than I ever was.

So should I throw out those singleton socks I keep in the back left corner of the drawer, or keep hoping the mates will magically appear?

I can't think of any good reason why socks should match. Matching things up hasn't worked out so well for us it occurs to me.

I went to a brand-new public library yesterday. It has state of the art everything. But one thing that I noticed is that it has no physical newspapers, and not many magazines. I do read online newspapers, but to me the experience is not the same. I much prefer the print version if I have a choice about it. The library does have online subscriptions, but a lot of retired people used to go to the library to read the paper or look at the new magazines. I think that represents a loss. I may have to visit other, older branches to see if they still have newspapers and magazines.

When it was built, the newspaper room was put in the basement so they could use the huge cellar for storing the gigantic bound volumes of newspapers. In the sixties, they went all out for microfilm. Now, we only keep about a month's worth of physical newspapers (the few that are still publishing I should say).

The old building for this library had storage stacks as well for old newspapers and magazines, which I used sometimes. I wouldn't mind if they threw the newspapers out after say, seven days, but I do want them back!

Done & Done Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> P.S. I don't consider that the brief mention of
coffee made this post on topic. It's on topic because I am [ridiculous].

Zoom. Right over your head. No surprise there.

Mormony wrote
^ … am [ridiculous]

White ppl are called all kinds of things here and lumped into one stereotype. The racism here is what’s gotten [ridiculous].



Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 07/15/2021 07:20PM by kathleen.

kathleen Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> White ppl are called all kinds of things here and
> lumped into one stereotype.

I hope that isn't true. I, for one, have stated many times that the vast majority of white people (and particularly white men) are fine individuals who view others with goodwill and as equals. I have problems with institutions that come from a different time and advantage one race over another, also with the minority of white people who are racist, but that is not the same thing as distrusting an entire category of human beings.

Given the demographics of the United States, no progress towards better treatment of minorities would be possible without the goodwill of white people. We ASSUME that goodwill both because it is essential and because it is a reality demonstrated over two centuries of history.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/15/2021 07:34PM by Lot's Wife.

?????

OP mentioned being white, presumably as a joke.

You mentioned it in an earlier post in this thread, also presumably as a joke. calling OP white, and delightsome.

Nightingale mentioned black and white photos.

That's it. White people weren't called all kinds of things. They were barely mentioned at all.

edit to add: I suppose you were referring to threads here in general. Yeah, broad brushes are often wielded, but I assume that is lazy writing rather than animus, for the most part.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/15/2021 11:28PM by Brother Of Jerry.

No, BoJ, I wasn't joking when I referred to D&D as "delightsome."

His threads are generally that. My only joke was adding the Mormon suffix "some" to the perfectly good word, “delight.” I'd have rather used "delight-ment" or "delight-ish-ness."

It seemed that everyone was enjoying the thread which Mormany turned sour (in my opinion) with his hit-and-run jab at the OP by replacing "white" with "[ridiculous]." Why on Earth?



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 07/16/2021 03:00AM by kathleen.

Politeness is becoming so rare that people now confuse good manners with flirting.

I know. Right? I've become terrified of being too friendly with anyone I don't know really really well. As an employer in today's world social distancing is for more than just avoiding viruses.

Somebody said I was being paranoid, but then I remembered that old saying, "Paranoia is just having all the facts."

A little while later, my supervisor motioned me aside, and discretely and gently said, "Caffiend, we can't do that anymore, you know?"

I appreciate that he handled it simply and confidentially. All the same, later on when we were alone, I gave her a big kiss on her cheek. She deserved it! The promotion. And maybe the kiss!

Politeness and good manners have no sell by date.

They do come with a lot of rules though.

Have had similar conversations with my peers.

FB has a meme about naming things the younger generations wouldn't know...

Typewriters
FOOTNOTES on a paper for class
Rotary phones
TV going off after Johnny Carson
(Although my city did have a "Movie's til Dawn" feature on Fri/Sat nights- old black/white movies like Charlie Chan, Bela Lugosi, Lon Chaney, etc...)
No microwaves
No remote controls (You actually had to manually change the channel)
And so much more...

However, every generation has thought negatively about the younger generations. Our own parents and others also had similar head-waggings about us. And THEIR parents thought their children's generation was wild or misdirected in life.


Generational cycles

Your children and grandchildren will think the same about their younger descendants and their friends. And will lament the current societal factors in their older years.

For me the big divide is Monthly Charges.

Back from the mission and the married at the end of that school year, we set up a household in a two bedroom house out in Lakeview. Our monthly bills were rent, electricity, and water. No gas or credit cards. My only subscription was Time magazine.

Now how many monthly payments do I have?

It’s a ridiculous number! …I even have Grammarly…

No TV remote controls, and you also had to get up to adjust the rabbit ears! I remember 13 channels only on our black-and-white TV, and not all of those channels were active. You had the major networks (ABC, NBC, CBS) and a few others that were suspect because they were not the major networks.

Having a black-and-white TV meant that I went my entire childhood without realizing that "The Wizard of Oz" changed to color part way into the movie.

My mom, a depression baby, told me about a time when TV sets were so rare, that hosts would set up chairs in their living rooms so that their guests could watch a TV show for entertainment.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/16/2021 01:34AM by summer.

"I see no hope for the future of our people if they are dependent on frivolous youth of today, for certainly all youth are reckless beyond words... When I was young, we were taught to be discreet and respectful of elders, but the present youth are exceedingly wise [disrespectful] and impatient of restraint".
(Hesiod, 8th century BC)

Every generation rails against the callow youth.

I avoided a "smart" phone until about 4 years ago. I certainly prefer one now. Larger family gatherings now settle into everyone being in the family room off and on looking at their phones and conversing, with the tv on and the sound off. Seems fine to me. I'm 62, so old enough to predate remotes etc. I like our youth. They mostly seem thoughtful to me. I avoid the cloud and digital ecosystems like the plague though. I prefer to hold my cards close to my chest; even though I'm a thoroughly boring hermit.

I would like to close with something I wrote on that nice Cog Dis thread that went down too fast.

"I find your, "On the borderland, between the group and the society. Somewhere.. . ", a very nice way to describe the no man's land we find ourselves in when the Cog Dis hits. And, having lingered there a good while myself, I have found that beliefs are of little value-- if they have any. I also found my favorite default position is to not like anyone, believe anyone, trust anyone, until they have offered a good solid reason to do so--through their actions.

And perhaps there is a version of cog-dis between generations as well as religious doctrine or ways that facts collide?

But then, when you find "your people", the heaven's open. And for me, many of those people are from every generation. Once I meet them I find quite a few of the young ones I love. They are not all alike--- just like we aren't all alike.

Some, and a few, are nice words.