What I’ve noticed over the past 62 years

or

Memories from the BeforeTimes.

Part 1

62 years.

Sixty – two years. 

Siiixxx – teeeeee – twooooo FUCKING YEARS!

That’s how long I’ve been stumbling around this once (though no longer, thnx to us) beautiful planet, which I’m sure is a hefty kick in the nuts to all those who voted me ‘Most likely to be dead by age 30’.  Although, in their defense, it’s not like I didn’t try. Between really bad judgment, oceans of alcohol washing down inhuman amounts of every kind of pill, paired up with the vigorous, enthusiastic abuse of more substances than most people even know exist, I would not have bet against them.  In fact, I’m probably more surprised than they are, having more than doubled the life expectancy they saw fit to estimate for me.   But what surprises me even more is some of the shit I’ve seen and done during those years.  Here are just a few examples, in no particular order and hopefully real, not just some instances of the Mandela Effect.

 Telephones – if someone wanted to get hold of you, they had to call you at home because the phone was physically attached to the wall. If you were already talking to someone, any other callers got a ‘busy’ signal, no call waiting or voice mail. Plus, you could lie about where you were if necessary, not like today, where your friends can locate you via GPS. No touch screens or push buttons either, just a good old rotary dial and only one ring tone – an actual physical bell inside the phone.

 Video Players  -- When we got to see a video in class, it was a massive effort – couple guys from the Audio Visual club would wheel in the video player on a huge cart (the machine was too heavy and awkward to carry), then they’d pull out the giant reel of video tape, one inch at first, then down to a mere half inch a few years later, and thread the tape through a complicated series of cogs and slots. Before tapes, I recall filmstrips and scratchy 16mm film projectors.  The first VCRs I saw for home use were around $2,000, and the first of the ongoing format wars was fought out between VHS and BETAMAX.

  Electronics – My generation’s level of tech savvy can be summed up in three words – Pong Impressed Us. Big groups of us would skip out of school, get baked on shitty Colombian dirt weed, and spend 5 or 6 hours having tournaments, stunned rigid that we could play table tennis right in our living room.  We never got bored with that stupid square pixilated ‘ball’ because we had never seen anything like it before, and years later, you could still see the tell tale ball and paddles burned into the TV screen, eternal witness to the biggest technological breakthrough in home entertainment the world had seen thus far.  It was only a couple of years before SPACE INVADERS and ASTEROIDS came out, (big, standup arcade machines, we had to wait for home versions), and we knew we were diving headlong into the marvelous Future the 50’s had promised us, and meals in pill form couldn’t be far behind.

  Calculators – The first electronic calculators we saw were from Texas Instruments, about twice the size of a paperback, and cost around $350. Once again, these portable math computers that anyone could own astounded us. Boy, we were living right out there in the fucking sci-fi future!

  Home Computers-  I remember the first computer store opening in Semiahmoo Mall, in White Rock, and we got curious and went for a look. I’m going to keep this short, mainly due to the embarrassment re: what was thought of as a ‘home computer’ back in the Before Times. Ready? Here we go  - Huge, bulky desk top system with a monochrome screen, heavy as fuck, less memory than a wristwatch has today, everything had to be loaded separately on big 5.5inch floppy disks all for the low low price of around $20,000. We didn’t get one.

Next time, we’ll get into Color TV, Cable TV and what we had to go through if we wanted to view an ‘Adult’ movie at home.

Please feel free to comment, let me know what advances you remember, no matter what era you hail from, and, as always

Be safe and don’t take any shit!

T.R.S.