When I was the remote control
When I was the remote control...
When I was a young boy I was the remote control for the television in our household: “John, change the channel;” “John, fix the rolling;” “John, turn the volume up.” Anything to do with the TV and I was the remote control; voice-activated, no less.
(Many people today will have no idea what “fix the rolling” means. TV’s would have both a horizontal and vertical control, because periodically the picture on the TV would begin to slowly “roll” up or down the screen over and over and you would have to adjust the controls until the “rolling” stopped.)
And no QVC on television.
We had 2 or 3 channels for awhile, and when we got cable we received 13 channels and we thought we had lived all there was to live!
I was in my early thirties before I had a TV for which I was not the remote control.
When I was a young boy there were no cordless phones, much less cell phones. We had one phone, with a cord. We dialed numbers with a rotary dial...push buttons were not yet the norm. At times lines would “get crossed” for lack of a better explanation and we were cursed with a “party line,” where we would hear two other people having a conversation when we picked up our phone to use it. And there were actual party lines, and if someone else was having a conversation you had to wait to use your phone until they were through, or, if it was an emergency, you’d politely break into their conversation and ask them to hang up so you could use the phone. (Today’s cell phone users: think of a conference call using speakerphone.)
There was no 911 system. You kept the individual numbers of the ambulance service, the police department, and the fire department by your phone and called the appropriate number for the emergency at hand.
There was no caller ID and no call tracing, which made telephone pranks easy and relatively anonymous: Me to grocery store: “Do you have Prince Albert in a can?” Grocery store: “Yes, we do.” Me: “Well, you better let him out! He’s gonna suffocate!” (Prince Albert: a popular brand of pipe tobacco.)
Oh yes...no answering machines, either...much less voice mail. If you weren't home...you missed the call. Just like TV: no VCR's or DVD recorders...you weren't home...you missed the show, and you would have to ask your friends what happened on your favorite show.
Just think: no computers and no Internet. If I wanted greater knowledge of something other than what was in the dictionary or the encyclopedias I drove to the public library or the university library, looked through their card catalogs, and read...real books; actual paper and ink.
Just think: no e-mails, no social media of any kind such as Facebook, and again, no cell phones; if you couldn't locate an old friend you made phone calls to mutual friends and hoped that someone had heard from the old friend and perhaps had a phone number or address for them. Failing that you could go to the library and request the phone books of cities on microfilm in hopes of discovering your friend’s phone number. That’s how I found my biological family.
(Oh, yeah: the no e-mail thing...you wrote a letter by hand, mailed it, waited for 3-5 days for it to arrive at its destination and then waited for a reply. Communication between friends or family could take weeks.)
Even when I was a young man cell phones were not in everyday use: I used to bicycle great distances on my bicycle, 300-400 miles a week including rides up to 100 miles long at a time. I remember flatting out with no spare tube and no patch kit (which I rectified soon thereafter) and walking a mile in my biking shoes (no easy feat because they had cleats on them to grip the pedals of my racing bicycle) while pushing my bike until I found a business with a phone that would let me use it to call for help.
Film cameras were state of the art.
Newspapers, TV, and radio were the breaking news.
Music CDs came into being after I'd been married for five years and had a kid.
I had a state of the art writing instrument: a portable manual typewriter that eventually got upgraded to an electric, and then wonder of all wonders, an electronic!
There were no iPods; a Sony Walkman with AM/FM radio was state of the art and if you really got fancy you bought one which also played cassette tapes.
I had an 8-track tape player in my car and a portable 8-track player in my house. The 8-track tapes would stop working properly and we had all kinds of tricks to get a little more life out of them, including whacking them forcefully with our hands and blowing forcefully into the opening of the housing. Heads for both 8-track and cassette players needed to be cleaned frequently using a long handled cotton swab and rubbing alcohol to get rid all of the accumulated grit and debris the tapes would leave behind as they played.
Wow...I look at how far we’ve come and it’s truly amazing. I remember each little improvement we enjoyed and were overawed with, but now the improvements come daily, sometimes hourly, and today’s kids grow up with a plethora of goodies that we could never have even imagined. I wonder if it makes it hard for them to become aware of some new device or gadget or function and for them to go “Wow!” in response. I hope not.
(Oh...the Funk and Wagnalls dictionary the remote is resting on? It’s from 1977...held together with tape and with many of its pages falling out. On the popular TV sitcom “Laugh-In” they used to say: “Look that up in your Funk and Wagnalls.” I still do.)
.
My photographs and videos and any derivative works are my private property and are copyright © by me, John Russell (aka "Zoom Lens") and ALL my rights, including my exclusive rights, are reserved and protected by United States Copyright Laws and International Copyright Laws.
This photo is NOT authorized for use on blogs; pin boards such as Pinterest; Tumblr; Facebook; or any other use without my specific written permission.
ANY use without my permission in writing is forbidden by law.
When I was the remote control
When I was the remote control...
When I was a young boy I was the remote control for the television in our household: “John, change the channel;” “John, fix the rolling;” “John, turn the volume up.” Anything to do with the TV and I was the remote control; voice-activated, no less.
(Many people today will have no idea what “fix the rolling” means. TV’s would have both a horizontal and vertical control, because periodically the picture on the TV would begin to slowly “roll” up or down the screen over and over and you would have to adjust the controls until the “rolling” stopped.)
And no QVC on television.
We had 2 or 3 channels for awhile, and when we got cable we received 13 channels and we thought we had lived all there was to live!
I was in my early thirties before I had a TV for which I was not the remote control.
When I was a young boy there were no cordless phones, much less cell phones. We had one phone, with a cord. We dialed numbers with a rotary dial...push buttons were not yet the norm. At times lines would “get crossed” for lack of a better explanation and we were cursed with a “party line,” where we would hear two other people having a conversation when we picked up our phone to use it. And there were actual party lines, and if someone else was having a conversation you had to wait to use your phone until they were through, or, if it was an emergency, you’d politely break into their conversation and ask them to hang up so you could use the phone. (Today’s cell phone users: think of a conference call using speakerphone.)
There was no 911 system. You kept the individual numbers of the ambulance service, the police department, and the fire department by your phone and called the appropriate number for the emergency at hand.
There was no caller ID and no call tracing, which made telephone pranks easy and relatively anonymous: Me to grocery store: “Do you have Prince Albert in a can?” Grocery store: “Yes, we do.” Me: “Well, you better let him out! He’s gonna suffocate!” (Prince Albert: a popular brand of pipe tobacco.)
Oh yes...no answering machines, either...much less voice mail. If you weren't home...you missed the call. Just like TV: no VCR's or DVD recorders...you weren't home...you missed the show, and you would have to ask your friends what happened on your favorite show.
Just think: no computers and no Internet. If I wanted greater knowledge of something other than what was in the dictionary or the encyclopedias I drove to the public library or the university library, looked through their card catalogs, and read...real books; actual paper and ink.
Just think: no e-mails, no social media of any kind such as Facebook, and again, no cell phones; if you couldn't locate an old friend you made phone calls to mutual friends and hoped that someone had heard from the old friend and perhaps had a phone number or address for them. Failing that you could go to the library and request the phone books of cities on microfilm in hopes of discovering your friend’s phone number. That’s how I found my biological family.
(Oh, yeah: the no e-mail thing...you wrote a letter by hand, mailed it, waited for 3-5 days for it to arrive at its destination and then waited for a reply. Communication between friends or family could take weeks.)
Even when I was a young man cell phones were not in everyday use: I used to bicycle great distances on my bicycle, 300-400 miles a week including rides up to 100 miles long at a time. I remember flatting out with no spare tube and no patch kit (which I rectified soon thereafter) and walking a mile in my biking shoes (no easy feat because they had cleats on them to grip the pedals of my racing bicycle) while pushing my bike until I found a business with a phone that would let me use it to call for help.
Film cameras were state of the art.
Newspapers, TV, and radio were the breaking news.
Music CDs came into being after I'd been married for five years and had a kid.
I had a state of the art writing instrument: a portable manual typewriter that eventually got upgraded to an electric, and then wonder of all wonders, an electronic!
There were no iPods; a Sony Walkman with AM/FM radio was state of the art and if you really got fancy you bought one which also played cassette tapes.
I had an 8-track tape player in my car and a portable 8-track player in my house. The 8-track tapes would stop working properly and we had all kinds of tricks to get a little more life out of them, including whacking them forcefully with our hands and blowing forcefully into the opening of the housing. Heads for both 8-track and cassette players needed to be cleaned frequently using a long handled cotton swab and rubbing alcohol to get rid all of the accumulated grit and debris the tapes would leave behind as they played.
Wow...I look at how far we’ve come and it’s truly amazing. I remember each little improvement we enjoyed and were overawed with, but now the improvements come daily, sometimes hourly, and today’s kids grow up with a plethora of goodies that we could never have even imagined. I wonder if it makes it hard for them to become aware of some new device or gadget or function and for them to go “Wow!” in response. I hope not.
(Oh...the Funk and Wagnalls dictionary the remote is resting on? It’s from 1977...held together with tape and with many of its pages falling out. On the popular TV sitcom “Laugh-In” they used to say: “Look that up in your Funk and Wagnalls.” I still do.)
.
My photographs and videos and any derivative works are my private property and are copyright © by me, John Russell (aka "Zoom Lens") and ALL my rights, including my exclusive rights, are reserved and protected by United States Copyright Laws and International Copyright Laws.
This photo is NOT authorized for use on blogs; pin boards such as Pinterest; Tumblr; Facebook; or any other use without my specific written permission.
ANY use without my permission in writing is forbidden by law.