A Word about Modernity

I remember living without TV. We were a household of seven with one radio, one telephone, one car, an icebox (no refrigerator for awhile) and we survived pretty well. Today? Well, for the two of us we have 4 TVs (two are ancient and not used very often), a cell phone but no iPod, bluetooth or a smart phone and one car. And we survive pretty well.

One TV is in the kitchen, another in the bedroom, another in the family room and one in the guest bedroom. My computer is pushing five years and still going strong (though a bit sluggish at times). It too has a bunch of programs I never use but I don't dare delete them because they might be necessary. It has a program 9a7db6361b11agfe53082a but I have no idea what it is. I "Googled" it but came up blank.

We have Comcast for our TV, DSL and Phone right now but who knows about the future. We had to upgrade involving two little boxes and but the new remotes need another remote to work properly. Then I heard that Comcast recently purchased 51% of NBC so they seemingly will have something to say about both Cable TV and Networking. Some pundits seem to think that TV will go the way of wire recorders. Which reminds me, I have a storage bin filled with old slides and vinyl records (kept primarily for their covers of pictures of friends who recorded years ago).

The agony of this is the thought of our kids inheriting all these jewels. Won't they be lucky? Imagine playing a 33 rpm on an iPod without a go-between? We hope when the day comes they'll appreciate their inheritance on the way to the recycling depot. But if the depot will not welcome them they probably can find a dump in the Yellow Pages.

Senior moments are often comprised of nostalgia and obsolescence commingled with aspirations of frustration for the next generation similar to frustrations TV faces. History, for some reason, just doesn't like to stand still. But some of us seniors would welcome a respite: "an interval of temporary relief or rest" and let modernity stand still for awhile in case we want to catch up.