I want to see it!

Last night our little family went to spend the evening with my parents and my sisters. Dinner at my parents always involves great food, over-stuffed bellys, typically a lot of laughter, and some picture taking. This labor day week end dinner was no different.

My sister J had her camera out and began to take some pictures of L and baby Q. Q was sitting in L's lap with a beautiful new dress on. Who could pass up a picture like that? Later, I grabbed Q and held her for a while. J took our picture also. The next picture was with T. He was playing with his toys on the floor and J thought he looked cute playing, so she took his picture. He loves to have his picture taken. He also loves to see the picture on the digital display when the picture is taken. Sometimes he wants to see it before you take it, which can mess up the picture you were going for. Knowing this, it was no surprise that after J's camera flashed T immediately ran over to her yelling," I want to see it! I want to see it!" J laughed. She knew what he wanted to see, but it was funny since she had an older 35mm camera. I laughed as she tried to explain to a three year old why there was nothing to see on her camera, and the whole idea of film, and waiting for it to be developed. T was not laughing. He was still yelling,"Let me see it!" His arms reaching up for the camera, his legs jumping up and down trying to get high enough. It was as if he could just get a look at it there would be a picture of him on the back, and J was just keeping it from him. All he has ever seen has been digital cameras. He has never known a time when cameras had film.

That got me thinking about all the things that I had in my life that he won't have in his. Things like VCRs, or phones with dials instead of buttons, or for that matter phones with a cord to the handset are almost completely gone. I can't forget walking around dragging a 25 foot cord, trying not to get tangled up in it. Remember the early cell phones? It is funny to see an eighties television show and see someone pull out a brick looking cell phone.

Record players are all but forgotten. The only place to see these are on older television shows and movies also, along with the albums and 45's we used to play on them. I mentioned computers in a different post. People didn't have computers in their houses when I was young, It was somewhere in the early 80's I think that they started to become actually usable in a home. I remember computers that had no had drive, but instead loaded the data from a cassette player. Not only that, but the programs I used I had to write myself in Apple BASIC. That I will have to say is the equivalent of walking 10 miles to school in the snow storm, up hill both ways, which seemed to be the line of my parents and grandparents generations. The cassette tape seems to be just about gone also. What other things can you think of that seem to have faded out over the past generation? Feel free to add it to the comments.