The Olden Days

Been thinking about the old postcards, and how perhaps sending a postcard was the 1910 equivalent of sending a text.

Postcards were a good way to communicate.  Postcards were plentiful - although it did cost a penny to mail them, and a penny was real money in 1910.  But mail was delievered twice a day, and if you wanted to get a quick message to your friend, postcards were the ticket.

They couldn't text because they didn't have cell phones.  They did have phones - or  perhaps it's more accurate to say there was telephone service available.  But a phone in every home was not a given in 1910.  I  dare say some people were waiting for phone service to become one of those fads that reach a certain point in popularity and then just fade from existance.  (Eight-track cassettes. Cassettes.  BetaMax VCRs.  VCRs.)

That's kind of the way a lot of people looked at the internet when it first cropped up out of the primal soup, born of those early computers that were the size of the average garage, and which slowly ground out long skinny cards with holes punched in them.  Printed on each card was the cheery message, "Do not bend, fold, spindle or mutilate."   (If you remember this personally, you are as old as a rock, but hey - rocks are good.  They had their day, too.)

And all this brings us to the really big question: How on earth did people get along back then, when were were no cell phones.  Or refrigerators.  Or microwaves. 

They got along just fine.  Here's why: all the stuff we take for granted today had not been invented.  It didn't exist.  They did not know it would exist.  They couldn't have it...sing with me now...because it did not exist.  Consequently, they got along swell.

People back then were amazed by the new inventions of their era.  They were happy with the new inventions of their era.  The new inventions of their era were bold and modern and much superior to the new inventions of earlier eras. 

Huh.  That sounds kind of familiar. 

I guess I'll go text somebody.