Earlier this week my parents and I were chatting on the phone, and the subject bounced from the recent tennis tournament in their town, to sculpture, and to technology. It is amazing to think of all the changes in the world. I vividly remember reading my elementary school's Weekly Reader one Friday (because that's the day we read them), and the article was describing a giant airplane that was being built, and sometime in the future, we all might be riding in these planes. The plane? Boeing 747. And back then - Weekly Readers. Now the classrooms have leapfrogged from chalkboards and right over dry-erase boards, and know teachers use Smart Boards. Computerized. My parents described their phone usage when THEY were growing up: my Dad's phone number in Deer Creek, Oklahoma was 3. Ha ha! One digit! And my Mom's phone number was "Two shorts and a long". Hers was a party line, where farms down the road all shared the same line. Mom said one could hear click-click-click-clicks when some neighbors got on the line to eavesdrop on another's conversation.
My morning routine involves arising early, making coffee, and checking emails and weather before taking the dogs for a jaunt in dawn's early light. But this morning, my routine shifted just a bit: both our daughters were online bright and early. Well, bright & early for me in Central Standard Time. Claire lives in Virgina. Gillian is in China. And the three of us were online, talking to each other.
How's that for technology?
And for any interested readers, Gillian's blog on her travels to
the Golok Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture:
1 comment:
We had a party line when I was a kid. I have to admit that sometimes I listened in on other people's conversations, but then I still like to listen in on other people's conversations.
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