By Neal Wooten
It seems like we just started the year 2023, and now it’s over. When they said, “Time Flies,” they weren’t kidding. The world has changed so much in my lifetime, and it continues to change faster than I can keep up with it.
I remember when the pinnacle of technology was 8-track tape players. My first car, a 1974 Monte Carlo, had an 8-track. I had the little tape holder in the floor below the radio that held six 8-track tapes. Cruising around town with my bell-bottom jeans and listening to CCR and Lynyrd Skynyrd, I was one far out dude.
The most advanced toys on the market were the Etch-a-Sketch, Lite Brite, Spirograph, Magic 8 Ball, Operation, and Easy Bake-Ovens. Video arcades were popping up everywhere with Pac-Man, Donkey Kong, Space Invaders, Asteroids, and others. Now kids can sit in gaming chairs with virtual reality visors and play interactive online 3D games with kids in other parts of the world.
Remember when the landscape of rural areas was decorated with huge satellite dishes? If you couldn’t get cable where you lived and were tired of the three channels your antennae received, just put a giant mesh bowl in your yard. Now, folks get steaming channels on their TVs, computers, iPads, and cellphones and get thousands of movies and TV shows on demand.
Everyone wanted that 25-inch color TV with the big wooden console. The first time I saw a remote control, I thought I was in a Star Trek episode. But televisions kept growing in size and getting lighter. Now, of course, everyone has thin, flat screens from 50-inch to 84-inch and maybe bigger. I wonder how many more years before it’s like it was in the book, Fahrenheit 451 and the entire walls of your living room will be the screen.
I can remember when the dimmer switch went from the floor of your car to the steering wheel column. I remember when cars first came out with intermittent wipers. I remember the first front-wheel-drive car I ever saw. I remember curb finders. I remember when cars didn’t have power steering, much less rack and pinion steering. Now, we’re in the age of hybrids and electric cars, and they come with more technological wonders than you can shake a stick shift at.
So, as yet another year fades into oblivion, I’m reminded yet again of how fast the years and decades come and go. Next up – flying cars and space travel. And while the younger generation soars into the future, you’ll find me on my porch in a rocking chair with a shotgun yelling for kids to get off my lawn.