Wednesday, January 8, 2014

Tales of Yesteryear

We just had the following conversation:

Abby comes running into the bedroom.  "One of the kitchen lights is broken!"

Visions of broken glass began to dance in my head as I walked out to check out the situation.

All three lights were intact and working perfectly.  "Abby, the lights are okay."

She walked over the wall and pointed up, "But Mommy, this light is broken."

"That's a phone jack, Abby.  It's not broken."

"What's a phone jack?"  Joshua wanted to know.

"Well, phones used to need to be plugged in.  Not like the cell phones that Daddy and I use."

This was pretty universally accepted as truth and things moved on in our morning routine.  Then Claude came out and I explained to him about the 'broken light' and the subject was open again.

"You know," Joshua said.  "In the early 1900's phones used to be made of wood and metal.  They didn't run on electricity but used oil."

"And when Daddy and I were young, cell phones weren't even around,"  I said as I explained what a home phone looks like.  A cord.  Big buttons.  I didn't get into the cordless phenomenon.

Then we shared with the kids that we didn't have home computers until we were in grade school.  Even then I was probably 7 or 8 years old (it really wasn't that long ago).  This seemed unfathomable to our kids who are around compouters and i-devices all day.

"Wow!  When were you guys born anyway?!"

In the dark ages, for sure.



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