Digital Man

 There's no denying that each and every generation has it's own particular view of the changing world in which we live.  I sometimes wonder what it must have been like for people who remember both the first cars and the first moon landing.  Imagine going from memories of a horse-drawn milk wagon to "One giant leap for mankind"  My generation certainly can't compete with that continuum of progress, but I've mused countless times about the very unique relationship my mid-60's-born peeps and I have always had and continue to have with the birth and evolution of digital and computer technology.

 What sets today's 50 year olds apart from other age groups today is the timing of technological advances in relation to our stage in life.  It seems to me that I've always been right on the heels of it, with a first row vantage point, but yet inches from grabbing hold.  For example, I remember the very first Texas Instruments calculators.  Not quite pocket size yet, but small enough to hold in your hand.  Red digital numbers appeared as you clicked the buttons to complete simple equations.  They weren't inexpensive either.  I only recall seeing them here and there during my elementary school years.  So there I was, there we were, witness to a new digital technology, able to see it, hold it, maybe fiddle around with it, but too young to have a practical use for it yet.  So maybe by sixth or seventh grade I had my first pocket calculator, and I'll bet it set my folks back quite a few dollars even then.  Certainly not the disposable, and really, now obsolete thing they've become.  Meanwhile...computers that can fit on a table top are about to hit the scene...

 But when they do, and by the time they make their way into the public schools,they're there, but also so few in number that only the National Honors Society students could even take a computer class in high school. To students today that sounds preposterous, but in fact, I could not have taken a computer class to learn how to operate a desktop computer even as recently as 1982.  So again, I'm there, but not really with access to the technology.

 I attended a state university after high school and had not a moments problem meeting all the requirements with nothing more than an electric typewriter.  While personal computers were starting to become somewhat more common, printer quality was in it's infancy, and professors would not in a million years accept a paper printed in early dot-matrix.  So there I was, a twenty-two year old college graduate who quite literally had never used a computer.  But consider that at the same time, computers were becoming quite common in schools and very soon would be found in every classroom right down to the kindergarten room at the end of the hall.

 Eventually I sat down and used a computer. Probably played a game or two.  But we were well into our twenties before most of us considered buying a home computer, and that new, almost inconceivable internet thing didn't come along till we were almost thirty.  I'll never forget the rapt attention of three or four people huddling around a thirteen inch screen, watching in utter amazement as a color picture appeared, line by line from...from where?  From the internet.  whoa.  And we didn't even complain that the download took, oh, about two minutes or so.  That's right kids.  And it was AWESOME!  Also, it was probably something really constructive, like a picture of Kathy Ireland.

 Sometimes I still feel like I'm catching up.  Like tonight when my son laughed at my enthusiasm for throwback Thursday on Facebook by saying, "Dad, that started on Instagram like years ago."  Like I don't care, David, I've caught up to it now and I'm having fun with it.  Tonight I posted a picture of my sister and me from the summer of 1969.  Kids who had never seen a more advanced object than a Polaroid camera, and were pretty wowed by that, in fact.  How far we've come...well, almost - if we ever do catch up.