Tuesday, May 17, 2011

Sign of the Times?

So this all started when I went to the airport the other day to pick up my mother. I was waiting with my father, the two of us standing by some pay phones. A little girl next to us looks at her mother, points to the phones and asks, "Why do they have phones here?" I laughed to myself. When I was younger, pay phones were everywhere. In every restaurant, along the sidewalk, at the grocery store. Nearly every place one went one could find a pay phone. Nowadays though, everyone seemingly has a cell phone, making these payphones soon becoming a thing of the past.
Recently, I remember hearing a news report that the last typewriter manufacturer in the States closed its doors. Seriously, I think a bit of my heart died when I heard that. I still have a typewriter my mother gave me a few years ago. It's true, I don't use it, but that's only because it needs a new ribbon. There's something satisfying about the click, click, TING! of a typewriter that one just cannot get from a computer (it's more of a clack, clack, absence of TING!).
What else is on the chopping block, joining the ranks of the phonograph and VHS tapes? Will my kids give me that incredulous look when I say that lightbulbs used to be round (hence the bulb) and not shaped like a screw? Something to think about....

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