Where is my typewriter????

     I was Skyping my sister in law Joan in Wisconsin today, when we got a second Skype call from Julia in Switzerland.
     I grabbed my laptop and called Julia while Jackie continued talking to Joan.  After a few minutes, we switched and I talked to Joan while Jackie talked to Julia.
     Pretty boring, huh?
     Joan and I were marveling about our ability to Skype.  Now I am 60 plus.... or 9 in dog years.... and if you are under 55 you can't imagine how life has changed for people in my age group.
     In 1987 Commodore computers were selling for $1,495.  They sold over 1 million in 1991.  They were the leaders in the almost new PC market.  In 2004, over 173 million computers were sold in the world.  Then in 1995 Windows 95 was introduced and the home PC market shot off like a rocket.
    What are we doing with those computers?  We are using them to reconnect with old friends on Facebook, creating new friends, commenting on every topic under the sun, looking up information, finding dates, following our favorite sports teams, viewing porn, and all sorts of other activities that are pretty easy and common to do on computers.
     We are communicating.  Skype has been around for just a few years, and considering the world wide web became available in 1990, and AOL went live in 1993, is just a baby in the communications field.
    When I was a kid, we had those old rotary dialed phones.  And there were party lines.  Your phone had a particular ring and when you heard it you answered it.  If someone else was on the line, you could not use the phone but you could surreptitiously listen in on their conversations.
   Our entertainment consisted of the Saturday afternoon matinee at the Music Box or Rivera or even the Uptown or North Center theater, all in the neighborhood in Chicago.  We could watch three channels on our black and white tv and I was ecstatic when a fourth channel.... public television... was introduced.  My teen years featured Gunsmoke, Have Gun Will Travel, Bonanza and Lawrence Welk. (I think Lawrence Welk explains the strange fascination for theater parts featuring dresses.)
    Two nights ago I rented a video from Red Box.  I have watched on demand movies from Comcast.  People have Netflix, Apple TV, and other ways to watch movies, tv shows, or whatever.  We can watch the Rover on the surface of Mars ..... an inconceivable experience when I was a slim kid  and looking up at he stars.
    And boy do we have cell phones.   Computers and Kindles with Skype.  Navigation systems with sexy voices (at least I think they are sexy) telling us that we missed a turn and they are reprogramming.
     Reprogramming.
    The world is becoming smaller.  Communications are instant.  Important news stories reach us almost as they happen and fade from our minds just as quickly.
   It's an exciting, scary, fun time to be alive.
   And my typewriter?  Well, I finally broke down and got rid of it last week.  Took it to an electronics recycling center where the wires will be stripped and recycled, possibly into the next amazing electronic device that we all will accept as normal and not pause to marvel at its genius.