Boomers' Wisdom Blog

Most people in the world today simply assume they will be able to sit in front of their computer screen at any time of the night or day and type an email to a friend on the other side of the globe.  Or, if you have the right software on your computer, you don’t even have to type.  You can just talk and your computer will type for you.

The way technology is advancing in cell phones, pretty soon you won’t even need the computer.  We will be able to walk down the street and talk to a small device in our pocket and have it send emails, browse the web, place phone calls and send a document to any nearby printer.

The industrial revolution took decades from the late 18^th century into the early 19^th century.  It changed agriculture, manufacturing and transportation from manual and draft-animal labor to machine labor.  In those decades almost every aspect of daily life was changed dramatically.  During this time the telegraph, the telephone, radio and television were invented.

Although Gugliemo Marconi made the first successful transatlantic radiotelegraph transmission in 1902, residential radios and program broadcasts were not common until the 1920s. In movie theaters in the 1920s my parents’ were watching black and white “moving pictures” with text dialogue that flashed on the screen between scenes.  The actors’ voices could not be heard until sound was added.  The first talking picture, The Jazz Singer, was released in 1927.  The first commercially produced color movies did not come out until 1939.  The movie The Wizard of Oz switched from black and white to color when Dorothy entered Oz.  That introduced Technicolor to the viewing audience.  Gone with the Wind also came out that year in full color.

The first black and white television sets began appearing in American homes in the late 1930s.  Only the wealthy had them at first.  Programs were only broadcast for a short time each day and most cities only had three or four channels to choose from.  Color television sets did not follow until many years later in the late 1940s and even then, most programs were still broadcast in black and white.  The first color television broadcast was the January 1, 1954 Tournament of Roses Parade.

As teenagers, we boomers were far advanced from what our parents had.  We could buy a transistor radio that ran on batteries and take it with us to the pool or beach.  We went to Saturday afternoon showings of Frances the Talking Mule movies and could come in whenever we wanted and sit through it three times if we had nothing better to do.

My friend Patti shared this story:

I remember returning to the United States at the age of 5 after living in Panama for three years.  My dad was in the Navy.  We lived with my grandparents in the apartment building they owned in west Denver.  My first experience with television was watching through the window of a radio repair shop on the street level of the building.  The owner of the shop mounted a loud speaker externally above the window.  People would gather around on the sidewalk to watch the news and listen to the external speaker.  When Howdy Doody was on after school all the kids in the neighborhood would gather to watch.  Rain or shine, there was always a crowd.  The selection of programming was quite limited at that time.  Only two channels were broadcast in Denver and both began their programming at around 3:00 p.m. Every day there were two shows for kids, Howdy Doody and Romper Room, there was one soap opera and two evening news programs.  The format was later extended to add a couple of variety shows after the news program.  I will be turning 60 this year.  I have seen a lot happen with technology, as have the rest of my boomer buddies.  I just wanted the youngsters to know how fortunate they are, and to be aware of their generation’s “wonders” happening right before their eyes.

In our parents time technological advances took years or decades to perfect and market.  For us it was merely years and now they only take months.  By the time you walk out the front door of a store with your new electronic gadget in hand, it is already woefully out of date with the shipments that are arriving through the back door.

In recent years, we have all become so dependent on being so connected to each other and yet so mobile.  Just think that the cordless phone only became commonplace in our homes in the 1970s.  Before that, we bought long cords so we could make dinner and talk on the phone at the same time.  And check out the mobile phone Danny Glover is using in the original Lethal Weapon movie that was made in 1987.  Is that a car battery he’s carrying around with that thing?

We have come so far in such a short time that I wonder what chaos would ensue if we lost it all now.  I hope the young entrepreneurs of today appreciate what they have and are giving some serious thought to safeguarding it all.  Massive power loss will take down the servers, transmitters and the entire network that binds us. After all, it is their future they are protecting and we will all be in our nursing homes listing to ZZ Top being piped into the dining room.

By Paula Scanland