Starting with the Radio – now on Social Media
At times I have to laugh that I, at my advanced age, am one touting using the web and Social Media to its full advantage. Compared to the average user, I could easily be at least the mother if not the grandmother. But as they say, it is never late to try. It just sometimes takes longer to catch up.
The Rapid Changes in Technology
I try to read just about everything that I can get my hands on just to keep up with the rapid changes in technology. In my younger years, I was always amazed to think what my father saw during his lifetime – he was born the year the Wright Brothers flew their first plane at Kitty Hawk. Now I look at how far things have advanced since I was born and find it equally amazing.
I didn’t even know what a TV was until I was eight years old. The first one I ever saw was at a store – my father, a career Naval officer, had received orders for a two year tour of duty in Turkey, and Mother was busy stocking up on all sorts of things to take with us. She took me with her on one of her shopping sprees. We walked into a store that carried TVs – in those days they looked like big boxes with very small black and white screens – transmitted about two or three channels. I was absolutely fascinated – asked my mother if we could get one. Her answer was no because we were about to leave the country. It wasn’t for another eight years before my parents broke down and bought one – thanks to Mom. Dad hated TV up to the day he died in 1987.
The first color TV I saw was at a friend’s home at Christmas time in 1957. The colors were absolutely horrible – everything was either bright red, yellow (or orange if the red and yellow weren’t blended correctly), green or blue. No matter how much the set was adjusted, the colors were never right. Slowly but surely over the years color TVs started getting better. My husband and I bought one in the late 60s, and by then the colors had become pretty natural – still not up to today’s standards but a lot closer.
As a child, my main entertainment was the radio. How well I remember my first one – a bright red metal AM box with vacuum tubes that could be seen in the back of the radio as the top was left open to let heat escape. The radio had to warm up –l remember anxiously watching the filiments in those tubes turn to a bright orange before the radio actually came on. The AM antenna was a long piece of wire that I strung around my room in order to get a decent reception. As primitive as the things of my youth would appear to kids today, we had a real advantage. We learned to read and to use our imaginations. We played outside whenever the weather permitted. Do I regret not having what the kids have today? My answer is an overwhelming no – in fact, in many ways I think we were far better off.
