FAMILY3 - Who Says Nothing Ever Changes?

Pat and I were talking the other day about all the changes that have made our lives easier, safer, and perhaps more interesting.  Pat suggested that this was a good topic for a blog, so here goes.

I’m going to reflect on how the principle activities of my life, that have been, or are, most important to me, have changed over my lifetime.  I’m 80 years old now, so I have a lot of stuff to reflect on. 

Calculating.  In the early 1960s, as a student at Purdue, I carried a wooden slide rule to make a variety of engineering calculations.  When I started my engineering career, developing computer simulations in FORTRAN, I had to punch each line of code into a single card on a card punch machine, submit a metal tray holding my hundreds of cards to the main frame computer, and wait until the next morning to get a result.  By the time I retired in 2000, we had networked desktop computers with all kinds of power and flexibility.  Along the way came simple electronic calculators that evolved to complex function calculators. At home, I started in the 1970s with the first low-capability, stand-alone Apple home computer, and upgraded through the years to today's networked, internet-connected family desktop and laptop computers, IPADs, and smart phones, with astounding capability.

 

At Purdue, I used a slide rule very much like this one.

Communication.  The first communication device I can remember is the telephone, which when I started using one, was rotary dial, on a party (shared) line, with a telephone number like TU 1234.  Then, in an impressive and fascinating evolution, telephones changed to private lines, push button dialing, seven-digit local phone numbers, area codes, an extra charge for long-distance calls, a proliferation of telephone booths where you had to pay to make any call, mobile phones, cell phones, and today's smart phones with texting capability, and even smart watches.  And long ago I remember writing actual letters in longhand.  Computers and the internet enabled electronic mail, personal web sites, video conferencing, multi-user shared files capability like Dropbox, and blogs like the one you’re reading now. 

An old rotary telephone.

Writing.  When I began writing papers in high school and college, I used a mechanical typewriter, kept dictionaries and grammar books close, and made a lot of use of “white out” to correct mistakes.  I made the transition to that first Apple computer in the 1970s; that at least eliminated “white out” operations.  With the development of computers, came software that does amazing things like formatting applications such as text and tables, automatically checking spelling and grammar, inserting text, tables, or pictures from an external source - all the way to making it straightforward to literally produce a book on the computer - enabling me to self-publish six books.  Changes in communication enabled me to post some of my books on my website (ringbrothershistory.com) and this blog online (bobringreflections.blogspot.com).

I used a mechanical typewriter like this one.

Research.  Research was important to my inquiring mind as a youngster, and vital to my engineering career and my writing following retirement.  I remember our family having an encyclopedia when I was a teenager, and getting update volumes for ten years.  Starting as a young person, and continuing to adulthood, I visited libraries for research, perusing appropriate books, papers, periodicals and other documents - limited to that library’s available resources.  Library capability expanded with interlibrary loans and the introduction of microfiche copies of shared library resources that I could read on film readers.  But it was the development of computers, connection to the internet, and everyone making resources available online, that were the biggest deal.  With search engines like Google, I can now literally search the world for almost any information I need. 

Library research used to be completely hands-on.

Photography.  I remember my first camera, probably in the 1950s - a Brownie Hawkeye, a true point and shoot, with no capability for shooting condition adjustments.  I remember the black and white Kodak film with 12 photos available, taking the exposed film to the drugstore to be developed, and days later, with great anticipation, picking up my printed photos.  Photography technology expanded quickly with color film, film variety, flash, adjustable shooting settings, and telescopic and specialized lenses of all types - a trend toward larger, more capable cameras with lots of accessory equipment we had to carry around.  Then digital cameras changed everything.  I remember the exhilaration of being able to shoot as many shots as I wanted, get instant feedback on my photos, and trash the bad ones.  Image quality improved enough for Pat and I to print and display sizeable blowups.  Cameras evolved with variants to meet every photographer’s needs.  Image processing evolved from offline support programs to in-camera processing.  Today I can take pictures with a camera, my iPad, and even my smart phone, and utilize truly astounding image processing apps on all these devices.  Smart phones, for photography, have literally killed the point and shoot camera market.

I started with a Brownie Hawkeye camera like this one.

Reading.  I have read books for pleasure all my life.  I guess my earliest source for books was a library, and still today, my local library is the source of a lot of the books I read - mostly thrillers, science fiction, history, and biographies.  It helps that Pat, my son Steven, and his wife Lynne, were/are librarians, so I get a lot of good ideas.  And for several years now, I have had access to downloadable electronic books from the library.  I’m lucky that Pat has voluntarily accepted the challenge of “keeping me in books,” scouring the internet for publishing schedules, library book order plans, and getting on favorite-author alert lists, ensuring me (us) a good position on the wait lists.  We can also purchase books at reasonable cost - with online ordering from places like Amazon.com, and used books from an Arizona institution like Bookmans.

I started reading at an early age.

Entertainment.  How did people who lived before me find entertainment?  For me, entertainment started with leaving the house for such activities as movies, sporting events, musical events, parades, and so on.  I do remember the days of 78, 45, and 33 (RPM) vinyl records, and playing them on a record player.  I kind of skipped over cassette tapes, CDs, and iPods and MP players, relying on AM and then FM radio for music - mostly country western and classical.  TV changed the world for me in the 1950s, with access to all those events I had to leave the house for earlier.  I remember we had to have a big antenna on top of the house and a smaller “rabbit ears” antenna on top of the TV set to get clear reception.  In TV’s early days, we only had about three channels.  Of course, with the advent of computers, digitization, the internet, cable and satellite TV, and streaming services, there are now literally 100s of TV channels and I can now access virtually any form of entertainment and even manage (record, store, schedule play) all sorts of musical and visual arts.

An old 78 record on a record player from the 1960s.

Driving.  I’ve always loved to drive, especially on vacation trips.  I remember learning to drive in the late 1950s in an old Ford with a stick shift - a bare bones automobile with no power anything and no electronic aids.  I also remember the several times that I had to change a tire on the side of the road.  Improvements came quickly and steadily over the years:  automatic transmissions, power brakes,  power steering, more efficient engines, air-conditioning, air bags, miniature spare tires, run-flat tires, unleaded gas, spiffy interiors, electronically adjusted seats, memory seats, rear cameras, safety alerts, navigation systems, heated seats and steering wheel, satellite radio, internet connection, OnStar and AAA emergency assistance, automatic high beam adjustment, electric vehicles, hybrid vehicles … the list goes on.  And the vehicle type choices:  coupes, sedans, station wagons, vans, jeeps, hummers, SUVs … a plethora of choices.  Also, watched the roads improve dramatically over the years, especially with the interstate highway system.

On Spring vacation in the early 1960s, I drove a car like this 1956 Chevy from Purdue to the Florida beaches.

Medical Care.  All of us need medical care from time to time.  I can remember as a child that our family doctor would come to our home when needed.  We got prescription drugs from the drugstore.  All records were on paper.  Except for a childhood tonsillectomy, I really didn’t need medical services until my sixties when luckily for me, there were specialists who could treat my various older-person complaints.  I went to an internist who directed me to specialists as the need arose.  Again, it was computer and internet development that made managing my health more efficient:  digitized records that could be shared among doctors, mail order pharmacies to dispense drugs, online medical information for education, my own online portal to access my records and communicate with my doctor, and lately, video conferencing that replaces some person-to-person doctor visits.  Of course, medical knowledge and procedures improved too, enabling in many cases, shorter hospital stays and outpatient treatment.  And now, in addition to hospital emergency rooms, there are all sorts of regional or neighborhood health care facilities like Urgent Care, and clinics in drugstores.

I had fun putting this blog together and Pat and I both enjoyed the brainstorming for ideas and appreciation of improvement in our lives.  It seems like, every time we talked about changes, we came up with something new.  We identified a few other activities that I could talk about, including cooking and shopping.  But I think I’ll let Pat handle those two. 

Each of us would choose different important activities to think about, based on personal background and interests.  What are your activities that have changed for the better over time?