A Stunning Senior Moment

[kandrathe]

Yeah I had seen that one. And I did get a chuckle out of it. :)

Oh and "but since you started it", what's up with that? Trying to tell old man Bolty it's not your fault? "But GG started it Bolty!" Bah. Kids these days always trying to blame someone else for the crap they post! :P

When I was young I always reflected on how different things were for my parents. For entertainment, they would play music for each other, listen to radio shows or records, read books, or occasionally go into town to the movie theater. There was no TV at all, both of them lived on farms that used draft horses for some farm work, but also had a tractor (model A, or B John Deere). Both experienced threshing parties, and the camaraderie of getting together with the other neighbors to help bring in all the crops on time. One of my uncles took classes at the U of M from John Bardeen. After WWII, my uncle went on to be a metallurgical chemist and he worked for a local company that does electro-plating for the government.

When I was a boy, we had a black and white TV which we used an antennae to pickup five channels. Computers needed a huge room, and huge air conditioners. There were no electric ignitions on cars, and they would barely start when the temperature was under 10F. When I was ten we bought that new crazy video game system called the Odyssey for our new huge 20" color TV. I think most of the change I've seen in my life can be attributed to; a) the transistor, resulting in explosive growth in computing, b) bio-technology, resulting in new treatments, and understanding in medicine, and c) materials sciences (i.e. NASA) which have improved all fields by miniaturizing and improving the qualities of precisions equipment.

I remember school being that terror between torture by my peers, or torture by the teachers. For example, one teacher, if you were caught with a squirt gun would have you hold it in your hand while he smashed it on his desk embedding shards of hard plastic into your flesh. I think he was the same one who would have students stand 3' from the black board and then have to lean over to prop yourself up by finger tips only. The teacher I had in 5th grade would regularly pick students up and hurl them against the wall. The students were more cruel, until about 10th grade when we banded together for safety.

I lived in a semi-rural area, and it was common to have a few kids die each year to accidents at home/on the farm, on the roads, or helping with the family business. A good friend of mine died at age 15, buried alive while helping to dig out a septic tank. Suffice it to say, that I was not the only person to be glad to survive long enough to move away from there, never to return.