Life After the Dinosaurs: ENIAC Couldn't Telephone, Skype, or Text, Search for Pokemon, Make Travel Reservations or Warn of Tornadoes

Today's kids take all this for granted. They see nothing unusual about any of it. They also don't think it's miraculous to be able to effortlessly choose from thousands of fonts on their laptops — and change them as often as they wish, even within the same document. When I was their age, we were amazed that the IBM Selectric typewriter (what's a typewriter? kids ask) enabled us to choose from a handful of fonts by changing a golf-ball-sized element on the machine. Black magic! It could never get better than this, we thought. Bold? Italics? Different colors? Don't be ridiculous!

Today's kids don't have to struggle with typewriter ribbons, correction tape, Wite-Out, carbon paper, mimeograph stencils, Ditto machines, and a myriad other medieval instruments of torture that plagued secretaries of old. What's a secretary? It was a woman (never a man) who munched a brown-bag sandwich at her desk as she typed, while her boss, who made more than ten times her salary, was out enjoying expense-paid 'business' lunches and martinis with other bosses. If I sound bitter, it's because I am. I was born way too soon I envy all who weren't.

Other miraculous developments that today's youth takes for granted are theater-sized flat screen TVs with surround sound) … back-up cameras on cars (oh, the insurance surcharges I could have saved if they had been available earlier!) … cars with electronic turn signals, automatic transmission and power steering (which only those who had ever tried to parallel park without it could fully appreciate) … self-parking (even self-driving!) cars … wheels on luggage … jet planes … word processing and spell check … air conditioning …dishwashers (not Mom but machines) … spin cycles in washing machines, instead of rollers that squeezed out excess water … clothes dryers … refrigerators instead of ice boxes … microwave ovens … selfie sticks … wash-and-wear clothes … wrinkle-free sheets … no extra fee long-distance calls … and dozens of other marvels I'm sure I've forgotten because I, too, now take them for granted.

On the other hand, today's young people do have to worry about issues unknown to us at their age — including world-wide rampant terrorism, online predators, and crushing college loans …

Maybe I don't envy them after all.

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Life After the Dinosaurs: ENIAC Couldn't Telephone, Skype, or Text, Search for Pokemon, Make Travel Reservations or Warn of Tornadoes

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