How Technology has Evolved in My Lifetime

Good Morning,

It was January 31, 2009 when Michael, after not receiving a letter for a while and concerned that I was putting a hold on them or running out of things to write about, sent me a list of questions.  The purpose was to stimulate some ideas and in the process provide fodder for more letters, hopefully leaving something of my perspective for his grandkids.

I have mentioned it before in past letters that there are always questions left unanswered, when our parents have passed.  Some come minutes, even seconds after they are gone, while others can take years to surface.  Having personally experienced this in my own life, I am now convinced that it is impossible to think of everything, for as we mature our perspectives change and along with them the understanding of things around us.  We just don’t know, what we don’t know and therefore the questions don’t exist until that golden moment of enlightenment.  That “Ah Ha” moment and things become lucid.

Anyway, the list consisted of thirteen questions, none of them easy I might add, so with this letter, I will attempt to answer the first one on the list.  “How has technology changed in your lifetime?”  Are you kidding… in 65 years… there have been changes.

• Well, I was born in September of 1945 and World War II was rapidly coming to an end.  Germany had surrendered and was being carved up like a Black Forest Ham.  In August, Enola Gay had delivered “Little Boy” and Bockscar “Fat Man” respectivly with devastating affects on Hiroshima and Nagasaki Japan.  Now the term “Mushroom Cloud” would no longer just refer to smoking Psilocybin (Magic Mushrooms) and the world as we knew it would never be the same, since the atom also split our innocence.  I guess you could say I was born into the “Atomic Age”.  I then had to learn to “Duck and Cover” when in grade school, because Russia now had the “Bomb”.  The drill/instructions were such that as soon as we saw the “blinding” flash, we were to find cover (while blind I guess) and assume the fetal position.  I had bad dreams about that flash, as only a kid’s imagination can conjure.  Well that and giant ants, but that is for another story.  In later years and being a bit less naive, I learned that the whole exercise would have been just as effective as just puting my head between my legs and kissing my ass goodbye.  Of course butter, red meat and smoking were good for you too.
• My birth was before television’s “second birth” (being stalled by WWII) and radio was still “King of the Airwaves”.  We got our first black and white television in about 1953 when I was seven.  It was a 15” Philco (Philadelphia Storage Battery Company) and the cabinet was about the size of a small washing machine today.  Actually it looked kind of like a “front loader” with a wood cabinet and a very small door.  Yes and my mom kept telling me not to sit too close.  It was 15” of magical technology and Bridgett Bardot was on the Ed Sullivan Show, I didn’t want to miss a thing as my hormones demanded it.  French women were sooo sexy.  I was not then or now interested in her political or social views, as my interests were much more purient at the time.  I’m sure the radiation from that set didn’t affect me a bit bit bit.
• As a kid in the 50s, I went to Saturday Matinees with my friends for a quarter.  That was about the only way you would see a movie in color.  Color TV didn’t really come out much until the late 50s early 60s and then I would go to the neighbors to watch Bonanza on NBC.
• When I was born, medical x-rays were still in their infancy and a contributing reason why my sister had problems at birth.  Pelvic x-rays were not common at the time.  Mom was not capable of having a normal birth easily, which the x-ray would have shown.  My mom and I were 10 days in hospital after she had a C-section required for my extraction.  At my chunky 10 pounds, what woman wouldn’t want a C-section?  Unless of course you needed that extra garage.  The doctor bill…$150 and the hospital bill…$150 for the whole thing.  That’s $300 out the door.  (BTW the original bill is still in my baby book)  That’s a far cry from the $60,000 for my 4 days in hospital last year.
• I remember you could go into a local Shoe Store and with a heavily promoted device called a Shoe Fitting Fluoroscpe, see your foot inside of a shoe to see how it fit.  Your foot skeleton and shoe all right there in an eerie green glow.  Amazing stuff back then.  I guess we are lucky we still have feet since they were quietly taken off of the market and out of the stores when it was realized just how dangerous they really were.  Rad!  Or should I say LOTS of RADS! Hey, who needs a nightlight when your feet glow?
• The first “computer”, the Electronic Numerical Integrator Analyzer and Computer (ENIAC) was fired up in November 1945.  A name I’m sure that helped pave the way for many more acronyms.  The whole thing took up 1,800 square feet.  That is bigger than our whole house!  Not quite what you would call a portable.  It was 1955 before it was finally shut down.  The same year Bill Gates was born and Albert Einstein died.  Curious…
• I had personal music in the 50s and I carried them around in an 8” X 8” box to my friend’s house so we could play them on the phonograph.  The records were called 45s because they turned at 45 RPM.  They cost a buck and for that you got two songs.  The one you bought the record for and the other was a “B” side that usually stayed pristine.  Of course with “Elvis” there were no “B” sides.  We actually danced to the music, while our parents thought we were loosing it.  I suppose to them, we were… not much different from today.  It was the birth of “Rock n Roll” and we were at the beginning of it all.  Looking back, those times seem more special now than when we were living them.  I suppose that is true of a lot of things in life. 
• When I was 12, I got up at 2AM to watch “Sputnik” go over.  Russia (USSR) had beaten us into space with the first orbiting satellite.  I remember the early days of our Space Program were difficult with failure after failure.  I also remember the elation of our first successful launch for the USA, but Sputnik had gotten the cigar.  Second place sucked.  Now there are hundreds of satellites that are operational and thousands of others that have died out and become space debris orbiting the earth.  I suppose the space program has been and contributed to the most impactive technological changes in my life.
• As a kid, the robots were from outer space and they were generally malevolent.  There have been a lot of changes to the technology since then, like replacing autoworkers, doing jobs that could get us killed and/or a company sued.  It has been fascinating to watch the evolution.  I guess I can say robots evolve.

I suppose to sum it up and keep this from going on too long, just take the things I started with here, think of the evolution behind each and you will start to see what I have seen, albiet only in your mind’s eye at least.  It has been nothing short of amazing and with each passing day, I hear of new things that many couldn’t have imagined around the time I was born.

I love new technology and embrace it.

Love, Dad