HISTORICAL COMMENTS BY GEORGE CHEVALLIER 11-28-15

Technology

How many of us give any thought as to how many innovations have been afforded us in our lifetime? Just think about the differences during you can remember, let alone in the last hundred years. A hundred years ago few people had a car, a telephone, indoor plumbing or electricity. If we had to go back and live as our forefathers lived, would we survive? Of course we would. A hundred years from now, people are going to wonder, like we do now, how in the world did people manage with all the antiquated contraptions we have to put up with.

People of a certain age remember how things were before many of our modern day conveniences. There are very few left that remember the “horse and buggy” days or the days of the outhouse. In fact, there are probably very few that remember the days before many things that we take for granted today. But, they remember enough to appreciate what we have today. The problem lies in how to use them.

Before cell phones that can even take pictures or videos and send them to a computer anywhere in the world, there was such a thing as a “party line”. This was a phone in your home that was connected by wires to a central telephone office. An operator had to physically make the connection. On a party line, you might find any one of ten people talking on the line. If this happened, you would either wait until the line was clear or, as happened many times, listen in to someone else’s conversation. The telephone operators early on connected two parties by a system of wires that were connected at a central telephone office. My grandmother was a telephone operator in 1906 or 1907; but she was quick to point out that she only handled local calls; the more experienced operators handled long distance. She spoke of it like it was high tech. And to her, it probably was. She lost her hearing during an illness in the 1920’s and never used a phone again. If she did, it was always her calling you. Her method was to dial your number, wait what she considered a reasonable amount of time and say into the phone that she wanted to see you and come right over.

Another modern device is the hearing aid. She had one of the early ones that had a large device that fit between her breasts and required batteries and had a wire that connected to an ear piece. It never worked to her satisfaction, so she gave up on it and never tried a newer model. She always said there wasn’t anything worth hearing anyway. If it was that important, she said it would be in the newspaper.

Today, many of us would be lost without our computers. There are so many applications that make our lives better. The internet is a fascinating thing. I am at an age where I am considered a techno dinosaur. I know just enough to get me in trouble. I have become comfortable with what I can do on mine and don’t try anything fancy. I made up my mind a long time ago that my computer is smarter than I am and I just stick to what I can do with it.

The small electronic devices that are available today are seemingly endless. Ten year olds are running around with cell phones, ipods and MP3 players. I remember when my son got a video camera to film my granddaughter. Then it dawned on me that I didn’t have a DVD player to watch the DVD’s it would produce. I got one and my son hooked it up for me. When I expressed some ignorance as to it’s operation, he said that Lily could operate hers and she was only four years old. I can’t wait until she turns ten and can help me with my computer.

So, the bottom line is: “Enjoy what you have today and don’t worry about what is coming next. They are inventing new things while you’re sleeping and you can never be completely up-to-date.”

Like my grandmother always said, “It’s a great life, if you don’t weaken.”