I was very proud of my “I Like Ike” button. My dad brought it home, and I was able to wear it to school. I have a memory of wearing it with my crossing guard vest. I was in the first grade, and I felt the heavy responsibility of being part of the school crossing guard.
I arrived early to school. I joined the other crossing guards, and we would unfold the flag and raise it ceremoniously. We then paired up and went to the two or three crosswalks in front of the school. We wore yellow vests, and we each had a stop sign on a pole. My partner was in an older grade, and we would station ourselves on either end of the crosswalk. Students would wait at the corner until my partner blew his whistle and we would walk out a couple of steps into the crosswalk and put out our stop signs for any on-coming cars. The students would then safely cross the street. In the afternoon, we would do the same thing, ending with a flag-folding ceremony.
I’m not sure why things changed, but I don’t see student crossing guards anymore. It must have become a liability issue, but I feel I benefited from having the responsibility. I also learned to respect the flag of our country. We were sure to not let the flag touch the ground, as that would be disrespectful and could possibly lead to having to burn it!
I believe I grew up in an innocent time for our country. I was born in 1949, just after World War II. As a country, we were united behind our leaders and trusted them to make good decisions. As a child, I wasn’t aware of the McCarthy mess in congress, but I was aware of the big communist “threat.” Childhood games included “Cowboys and Indians” and when we played “war” the bad guys were the “Japs.”
I grew up in a white, suburban neighborhood that was built and was being built in the housing boom that occurred after the war. I wasn’t even aware of race until about the 4th grade when our teacher talked with us after lunch one day. A black (called negro, then) family was moving into the neighborhood, and their son was going to join us in class the next day. I was completely color blind up to that moment. I was then very curious about the fact that there were these classifications of people, and that we didn’t all look alike.
I think I grew up a lot and the country lost its innocence when President Kennedy was assassinated. I was a newspaper carrier at the time. As I passed each house, delivering the paper, the TV was on and tuned to the same news feed. I thought it amazing that nearly every house had a TV, and they were all on. To give you perspective, color TVs were fairly new/expensive then, so most TVs were black and white, if a family even owned one.
One of the most dramatic changes that have happened in my lifetime is the evolution of the phone. I always remember having a phone in the house. The phone was a magical devise that connected you to other households and businesses. Our phone number consisted of a three letter prefix, followed by four digits. If you were calling another number with the same prefix, you only had to dial the four numbers. When you dialed a number, it actually went to a switchboard, somewhere in town, and an operator would physically connect the line you were calling from to the number you dialed. Once, we had a party line. We actually shared a phone line with another customer, or “party.” If the phone rang with one ring, we knew it was for us. If the phone rang with a double-ring, we knew not to pick it up, because it was for the other party. You were on the honor system to not listen in on the other line. Of course, the phones were physically wired and placed in a central location in the house. You could pay extra to have an extension phone so you could have a phone in the kitchen and one in the living room. It was like having a party line within your own house. It was expensive to call long distance, especially during the day. Long distance was anywhere outside of town. The rates were time-based, so the least expensive time to call long distance was after 10:00 PM and before 6:00 AM. Calling home from college involved waiting until after 10:00 at night. If you were calling from a pay phone, you had three minutes before you had to add more money, so you tried to talk about everything in three minutes. Most long distance communication happened via mail. After writing a hand-written letter, you would put it in an addressed envelop and put a three cent stamp on it. You would drop it in a mail box and it would arrive at the address in about a week or less, depending on the distance. As can be imagined, communication was slow and limited.
The first innovation for the phone was the wireless phone. This wasn’t what you think of now as a wireless phone. The base was still wired to the house phone system, but the receiver was wireless so you could walk around the house and not be tied to the phone cord. The first models had static and didn’t work well, but they improved over time.
The first cell phones were called bag phones. It consisted of a bag about the size of a loaf of bread. You could unzip the top and there was a devise that you could dial a phone number. Also, connected to the inside was a receiver on a coiled cord that you could use to talk into and listen on the ear piece. A large antennae pulled up as well. Cell service was very spotty or non-existent. Oh, and this large, heavy bag had to also be plugged into the cigarette lighter in order to work. There was no battery.
Cell phone technology improved and after a few years, I had a flip phone. It was a clam-shell devise that was amazingly small for the time. At that time, I was working as the Director of Technology for a high school district. Another related devise that I carried at all times was my pager. A pager was a simple devise that you could dial and leave a phone number to call. The pager would buzz and leave a phone number. You knew then to call that number. This was necessary because cell phone service was too spotty, but a pager signal could reach nearly anywhere. You got a page, and then you found a phone and called.
The most life-changing upgrade to phones was the smart phone. Now everyone carries an internet-connected devise with them everywhere. If you have a question about anything, you can find an answer on the Internet. You have access to everything and everyone at any time. That is an incredible change. As with any powerful gift, it can be a blessing or a curse. Unfiltered access to knowledge requires critical thinking in order to sort it out. It is far too easy and irresponsible to let others do the “research” and come up with what to think.
The advent of the computer and the Internet and smart phones has changed society dramatically. You only have to go back to movies and TV shows before 1985 to see how life was so much different. Things we have become accustomed to and take for granted haven’t been around for that long, yet when there is a power outage we become disabled. If we loose our cell signal, we loose our bearings because our GPS navigator doesn’t work. Our “smart” life has caused us to become dumb, and we can’t read paper maps anymore. We are clueless to find our way if the GPS doesn’t work. The more we rely on technology to make our lives easier, the more we become dependent on that technology and the more we forget how to do things without it. I have experienced major changes to our country in my lifetime. Most change is good and necessary in order to evolve, but we need to be cautious about what we leave behind. Some of that knowledge might come in handy in the coming days.
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