Published: May 14, 2008 03:22 pm            

Now & Then: May 14, 2008

If I could go back to my youth I would, on one condition - that I could return to check my e-mails. The advances in technology since I was growing up in the '50s and '60s is amazing. Even time has sped up due to faster means of communication.

When I was a boy we'd never heard of a computer. Then when I was in college, the computer was that machine that took up most of the basement in Hanes Hall, where all the student records were stored. Today those records would fit on a chip the size of my little toenail.

When I first arrived at college in the fall of 1965, my student ID was a piece of paper with my name and student number. Within my four years there the university had gone "hi-tech" and put our IDs on plastic laminate, complete with our mug shots.

Thirty years later when I returned to campus, my ID had a bar code under my mug and a magnetic strip on the back containing all the information concerning my studentship, including how much tuition I owed or my bill at the book store.

Even ticket-taking at football and basketball games has undergone changes. Whereas the ticket stubs used to be torn off, now they're just scanned to check for authenticity and to count attendance.

Time used to go by a lot slower than today. I well remember being bored at home because there wasn't anything to do until time for the Little League baseball game.

Youth today have to be reminded to get ready for sports or other activities because they're so absorbed in video games, the Internet or building a computer model of a DNA molecule.

Which reminds me, in high school chemistry we had to build a model of an atom out of coat hangers, baling wire or whatever was handy. My Germanium atom with its 32 electrons circling the nucleus looked more like an unsuccessful attempt at twisted modern art than a chemical element.

The cars I drove as a teen didn't have power anything. The 1959 Opel Kadette even had to be moving for the heater and defroster to work because there was no fan. Today's cars practically drive themselves. Macho men no longer have to stop and ask for directions because the GPS tells them where to turn.

I'd still like to go back to the good old days, so long as the temperature isn't much above 80. I couldn't take my cell phone because there wouldn't be any communication towers to make it work. No need, either, for laptops, digital cameras, Blackberries or pagers.

Back in the day people wrote letters, phoned on party lines, talked to the neighbors from the porch and picked up hitchhikers. They paid cash at the store and had to go before a live person to get a loan. Once, solemn occasions weren't broken up by a Tchaikovsky's "1812 Overture" ringtone chirping from a cellphone.

But hey, I find positives in both worlds. Things were much simpler way back when, but much more convenient today. In the long run, it's the relationships between people that stand the test of time. I do miss 30¢ gas, though.



Larry Penkava, who has written Now and Then since 1994, would like to have his young body back.

        

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