Modern Technology

We had a black and white 19 inch tv until the antenna (anyone under the age of 30 would have no idea what that is) got hit by lightning and *zzzap!* there went the tv. I remember it so well because I was 4 and it was Halloween. I was watching a Scooby-Doo Halloween Special- I still don't know how it ended... A couple of days later, Dad came home with a brand new 19 inch COLOUR TV! Click! Who KNEW that Carol Burnett was in such a glorious array of colour?!? This was a whole knew foray into the wonderfully mind numbing world of television viewing. Marshall Matt Dillon wore a pink shirt, Miss Kitty had eyeshadow the colour of sapphires, the Hudson Brothers were visited by a colourful Rod Hull and his Emu, Sonny and Cher had eye dazzling glittery costumes that were a briliant array of rainbow colours. I was 5 years old before I knew that The Wizard of Oz was partially in colour. Unfortunately, it made the flying monkeys even scarier than normal black and white... That was the extent of modern technology until I was about 13 or 14. Then came the glorious Video Cassetter Recorder! Ah the VCR!! Now I could watch movies I saw in the theatre a year ago! Mom rented a VCR for us one weekend for $5 and two movies for $2. The VCR itself looked somewhat like a box droid from Star Wars. You would push the eject button and the cassette feed would pop up from the top on well oiled hinges. You would put the cassette into the feed and click the feed back down into the machine and then hit play. Michael J. Fox in "Back to the Future" filled the screen (but first I had to turn the knob to Channel 3 so we could watch it) and the strains of Huey Lewis filled the living room. Next up, Footloose with Kevin Bacon (the original and the best one, in my opinion). We didn't have video games in our house, hence the reason I was not and am not a huge video game fan. Nah, I went to Tanya's house to play their Atari 2600 and Pac-Man and Donkey Kong for that. Back then, if you wanted to get a hold of someone, you called them on the phone. You knkow, a land line. A phone that hung on the wall and had a 12 foot cord attached to it so you were limited to the range in which you could get away from the phone. The phone actually rang in a *brrrriiiiiinggggg* sound (not in some ringtone by Barry Manilow or Donna Summer or some other artist of the time) and was followed by the sound of three people in our house yelling "PHONE!!!!" If no one was home, the phone rang and rang...and then people hung up and tried later. We were not able to leave a message (only rich people had answering machines) nor were we able to text them as to their current whereabouts. Cell phones were not heard of at that time. It all seemed so Star Trek-y that we would be able to talk to someone away from home! It never ceases to amaze me how we managed to do without a lot of the modern ameneties that we have now. How did we exist without cell phones and computers and 90 inch flat screen plasma televisions? We did the best with what we had and we were satisfied... Wouldn't it be great to be like that again some days? ...excuse me...I have to answer my cell...