From a Different Time

Hello 2012.  How did you sneak up on us so fast?  When I was in high school (class of '97!) and the underclassmen started wearing letterman jackets (do they still have those?) that said "00" and "01" on them, I remember it looked so WEIRD.  I remember it was a hard concept to wrap my small brain around.  Yes.  Time is marching on.  Right into the 21st century.  It will be ok.

Now my 7 year old giggles when I talk about my childhood.  You know, back in the 1900s.  And I've realized that not only will our kids find us to be the regular kind of old you just automatically think of your parents as being, but throw in the fact that we were born in the previous century.  And the previous millenium. 

Yep, we are officially ancient.

My mom tells this story about her grandma, who was born in the 1890s.  She was raising her family in a tiny country town in southern Illinois during the 1920s, when some people came down their road, offering to hook up electricity to the different houses in the neighborhood.  And great grandma didn't really think they needed it.  I mean, what would they do with it?  See it was enough voltage to light ONE LIGHTBULB.  Who cares?  We have kerosene lamps for that.  Duh people.  No thanks.

So Noah is listening intently to this story.  He can't imagine it.  So my mom is telling him.

See Noah, they didn't have refrigerators, or phones, or air conditioners, or televisions or computers back then.

His response?

"Are you saying they didn't have iPods?!"

No Noah.  Sadly there were no iPods in the 1920s either.

So as crazy as electricity seemed to my great grandma, Noah found it equally as crazy that great grandma couldn't buy Plants vs. Zombies in the App Store.

At a recent PTO meeting, we were discussing how to spend certain funds on new technology for the school.  And we had a technology expert come and speak to us about our different options.  And talking about the future, he said that as crazy as it sounds, down the road he sees our kids having all their textbooks loaded onto an iPad (or similar device.)  There would be no need for actual textbooks.  No backpacks.  No paper.  Everything you need is right here on this device.

I left that meeting thinking - Wow. 

I felt a little closer to my great grandma that night.