Fifty
posted in Computers, Internet, OmegaMom, Politics, Pop Culture, Science |
I am no longer “forty-mumble” years old. Today I hit the official half-century mark.
I can remember years ago, when I hit twenty-five, having a phone conversation with my dad. I told him I didn’t feel like it was possible that I was twenty-five. At the time, it seemed “old”…He told me that he couldn’t imagine being in his fifties, and that all the time he felt like he was still in his 20s or 30s. Now I know how he felt.
What has gone on in those years?
In no real particular order: Sputnik. The JFK assassination. Martin Luther King Jr. being shot. The Civil Rights movement. The Apollo program and the moon landing. The Summer of Love. Riots. Woodstock. Kent State. Watergate. Gas lines. Jimmy Carter sitting in the White House wearing a cardigan sweater. Huge computer rooms filled with spinning tapes morphing into 8-1/4″ floppy drives morphing into boxy 10-MB hard drives morphing into the first Apples and PCs morphing into desktops and laptops and netbooks; cabling turning into wi-fi. IBM Selectrics being perfected and then *poof* disappearing into the mists of time. Reagan being shot. The first shuttle take-off and landing. Saturday Night Live. The Iran hostage crisis. Northwestern University, Loyola University, community college in Arizona, California State University. The Blue Angels performing in Chicago, and San Francisco. Three loves and one husband. MTV. A shuttle exploding. Another shuttle exploding. The Loma Prieta earthquake. The Oakland Firestorm. Usenet. Mosaic. Netscape Navigator. The Internet. Bulletin boards. YouTube, Twitter, blogs. The dot-com crash. Bush I. Dubya. Clinton. 9/11. Weddings. Births. Funerals. Amazon.com. Chicago, Arizona, the Bay Area, Lubbock, Arizona, Alaska. The invention of in-vitro fertilization. The Beatles, the Who, Jefferson Starship. Heavy metal. Punk. Rap. Hip-hop. Grunge. Us trying IVF. Adoption from Korea fading, adoption from China growing. Us adopting from China. Gay rights. The first black president of the U.S. The Segway. Hybrid automobiles. Hubble telescope. Katrina. Glasses, contacts, LASIK. Mini skirts, maxi skirts, the Marcia Brady look, tunic sweaters with legwarmers and straight-leg jeans. Star Wars. Cell phones as a status symbol turning into cell phones in the grocery store checkout line. Mix tapes turning into Walkmen turning into iPods. Sushi, tapas bars, Pop-Tarts and GoGurt. The Food Network, Bobby Flay, Rachel Ray. Congresscritters Twittering. Three hundred and forty four extra-solar planets known so far.
It’s a weird, wonderful world. I wonder what the next 50 years will bring?
My mom blasted me with a series of “happy birthday” YouTubes in my email today. She was born shortly after TV was invented. I have a seven-year-old; who knows what she will see in the years to come?
Fifty years ago, a long-distance phone call was expensive. Yesterday, I was able to share a scary moment with friends across the world, and they were able to reply to me in seconds, minutes, hours.
