My G-G-G-Generation

Ever stop and think about how amazing it is to be a child of the 70's?  The post-Gen X'ers, so to speak?  This is contingent on actually being a child of the 70's, of course, unless you can appreciate those that are when you otherwise are not.

The 70's, along with every other decade I'm sure, where interesting times.  The hippies were growing up, rock and roll was really taking off, and some of the coolest people on earth were being born.  From a evolutionary standpoint we were no more remarkable than anyone else, but the way technology/science/music/etc has evolved along with us has been nothing short of incredible.  We were born with LP's & 8-tracks, moved to cassettes, then CDs, mp3s and now iTunes.  Home movies were on giant vinyl discs and then to Beta which morphed into only VHS, then DVD, Blue Ray etc etc.  And telephones?  Where do I get started on phones?  Born with Ma Bell rotary to portable ones that can do everything from start your car to split the atom.  And you can talk on them, too!  Then there's music (from folk to rock to rap to folkrockrap), computers (take up a whole room and now fit in your hand), and politics (just kidding, same old shit here just with different clowns).

I'm sure all other generations had similar advancements as they grew up but I think the difference with us is that we grew up along with them and evolved along the way, never to be left in it's wake.  My parents struggled to catch up with what was changing around them but, to their credit, they put me in a computer class when I was a young teen and I'm sure that has helped with my comfort level now (not that I have any use for typing GOTO or RUN into the computer these days).  I'm sure my parents parents probably had to ask their local priest if they were allowed to have a push-button phone when they were introduced, lest they be a fancy tool of the devil.  I was never baffled by a VHS machine, ours always displayed the correct time, and even to this day I adapted quickly to the MacBook that I am using right now.

It's pretty cool, but it makes me think about my kids and what could possibly change as dramatically within the first 30-40 years of their lives.  It's a scary thought.  I'm sure existing things could get faster, smaller, etc as our kids grow up but I can't fathom there could be as significant a shift in global culture as there was in the mid-90's when the internet took off and took over.  They'll never know a world when you had to write letters to communicate to people far away, machines called typewriters, or phones that only exist when plugged into a wall and then fall off the table because they vibrate like a geiger-counter when they ring.  It's up to us to tell them about these things, just as older generations told us about 'when I was your age!'  What's to come, I wonder?

Only time will tell, I suppose.

G.

PS.  1972 was for the coolest kids.