Hmmm, this means...
June 29, 2008
The other day, this kid--Sean--only not in duplicate, was in my Saturn VUE and asking me questions. How do you turn on the lights? How did you get the turn signal to signal right?
That sort of stuff.
He's 10, by the way.
Then he pointed. What's that?
"CD player," says I.
"What's this?"
"Turns up the bass or treble."
"What's this?"
"That's the cassette deck," says I, innocently.
Sean looks puzzled. "What's that?"
"It's another type of music format," I said. "It came before CDs."
He shrugged. "I don't know what a cassette looks like."
I had to think about this, but I think I only have 1 or 2 in the house any more. I believe somewhere on my shelf is an audiobook of Michael Chabon's "Wonder Boys." Otherwise, we threw all our cassettes out several years ago.
Sort of makes me feel old, though.
Hell, although 8-Tracks were pretty much dead by the time I came along, a friend's brother still had an 8-Track system when I was Sean's age. And for that matter, I can remember when my brother had a reel-to-reel. How's that for the Stone Age?
How about you? What time warp are you living in?
Cheers,
Mark Terry
p.s. Oh, and just for reference, I was born in January 1964--a couple months AFTER John Kennedy was assassinated.
posted by Mark Terry at 1:53 PM
11 Comments:
Oh, yes! And can I tell you how hard it is to submit audition tapes? I had to write a coordinator and ask her how people submitted these days.
Yesterday, I handed a student a book because he forgot.
"Man, this is old."
"No, it's not!" I said, put out. "I bought it new in college!"
Than I added.
Er, I guess I should be saying "audition ... recordings?"
How do people submit these days? Burn their own CDs?
Mark, your final comment reminded me of a conversation I overheard in the grocery store. Two women were lamenting another person's comment that the first president she could remember was Carter. I was embarrassed that the first I can remember is Reagan. But at least I can recall the election!
And I think everything is submitted with CD or via email, at least it is in advertising-land.
I once attended a lecture during which the lecturer singled me out and said, "I bet you still have your old 45s."
I said, "I not only still have them, I still play them."
For reasons unclear to me, the audience erupted in laughter as though I'd told the greatest joke in history.
I wonder when someone will say, "I bet you still read books printed on paper."???
LOL isn't that just mind-boggling? Kids today couldn't imagine life without cell phones, computers, and *gasp* video games.
You almost threw me when you said 8-tracks were pretty much dead by the time you came along. All of a sudden I'm wondering just how much older I am than you. Thank God you gave the year you were born! Now I don't feel so bad, but funny the different 1 1/2 years can make.
I was born June 1962, and 8 tracks were the 'cool' thing when I came of musical age--I may have hit that a little earlier than some back then. I do remember my first sterio, it was a 'room-sized' unit (okay not quite, but compared even to the 'boom boxes' of today, humongous). That sterio was a marvel. Shaped like a big wedge, it had an 8-track player, a record player (oh my, yes I had a collection of hundreds of those big vinyl things), AM and FM tuner--lord I remember then FM was THE amazing thing--no commercials--what happened to no commercials on FM? LOL
Oh, and egads and gadzooks, there were only 4 (FOUR) channels on TV, plus if you were lucky and held the rabbit ears right UHF and PBS too... oh my what a selection. And kids today look at you with great big puppy dog eyes saying 'there's nothing on TV" while perusing several hundred stations.
We only had one phone in the house, in the kitchen, too--oh the horrors.
Sigh, I remember the stone ages very well thank you very much.
Oh yeah, and the only way to see a movie except for the occassional commercial tv showing later on in my teens, was to go to a MOVIE THEATHER.
VHS came along after I'd been married a couple years, and our first one cost almost 2 thousand dollars! wow.
Now you've got me going. We were discussing this a couple weeks ago with our karate instructor, who is in his early to midi-50s.
Party lines, in my case. We had party lines for a while when I was a kid.
In his case, he even remembers when they had to call the local operator (someone in the area) to place a call.
Times sure have changed.
A friend of my wife's bought one of the early "cell phones" which came in a bag about the size of a Gucci purse.
This post smacks of "I'm stuck in my writing, think I'll blog."
...
This post smacks of "I'm stuck in my writing, think I'll blog."
This comment smacks of "I'm stuck in my life, think I'll visit someone else's blog and say something stupid."
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