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Oh goodness — 2007 already?
Time no longer flies, it roars at the speed of light! When I
was born, my grandmother was exactly as old as I am now. It cannot
help but give one pause.
And so, another in our occasional
looks at Things Past, as we see just how much the way we live
has changed through the years...
150 years ago, we were as likely
to live on a Family Farm as anywhere else. Certainly a number
of us lived in the cities, but a majority of us probably got
up before dawn to milk cows and collect eggs. We would presumably
live close enough (by horse, that is) to a town to purchase such
items as could not be home grown from the local general store,
but were largely self-sufficient.
For general entertainment,
assuming the proximity of the aforementioned town, we would be
dependent on the occasional circus, or travelling road show.
For music, there would presumably
be a piano in the parlor.
And we read books.
100 years ago, we were probably
still dependent on horses for transportation, though a few brave
souls were trying these new-fangled, noisy contraptions called
"automobiles". We were quite possibly still down on
the farm, though more of us were beginning to feel the lure of
the Big City, a siren song that would explode at the end of World
War I. For those not yet lured, our buying power had improved
immensely, as we could now order items from catalogs — a
trend Sears had started a decade earlier.
For general entertainment,
the travelling shows were still the mainstay for the farmers
among us, though frequently they would feature something new:
pictures that actually moved. For the city dwellers among us
there would be actual parlors where we could go and see these
"movies" any time we wanted to. This would have been
little more than a novelty though — compared to the delights
of the city's Vaudeville Houses, then approaching the height
of their popularity.
For music, the piano in the
parlor would quite possibly be a player piano by now, and even
that had competition: like as not, we would have little wax cylinders
which could actually reproduce music — even voices! Ah,
the wonders of the new century...
And we read books.
80 years ago we were probably
living in a City, and almost certainly driving a car. No longer
so self-sufficient, we would be buying most of our day to day
needs, patronizing local butchers, general stores, and a bevy
of other stores that were proliferating in response to the astronomical
explosion of the Urban Population. We could also toss the catalogs
— we could now visit Sears and other department stores in
person — and see and handle prospective purchases for ourselves!
For general entertainment,
we were forgetting about Vaudeville quicker than you can say
"get the hook" — those little movies had captivated
our imaginations.
For music, we had tossed all
those cylinders in favor of the more up to date 78 discs —
and we had probably just purchased our first radio within the
last couple of years.
And we read books.
50 years ago we had probably
just moved out of the city to something called the "suburbs".
We would still go to the city to visit the big department stores,
of course, although for day to day needs there were things called
"supermarkets" springing up near every suburb. We would,
of course, also need to visit the city if we wanted to take in
a movie.
The movies were fighting a
rival far more potent than radio by now, however — television.
It was small, it was black and white, and it had been broadcasting
in America for less than ten years, but it now dominated as our
number one source of visual entertainment. In response, movies
were now nearly all in color, and the screens had grown very,
very wide.
For music, radio was still
big, primarily among the kids. A new sort of radio called "FM"
was on its way in, but that was mostly for Classical enthusiasts
and Hi Fi nuts. The kids had discovered something called "rock
'n' roll", which single-handedly saved a lot of radio stations
from being rendered obsolete by television. And the kids were
buying records — though by now (1957) they were buying more
45's than the old 78 discs. And for the aforementioned Classical
(and jazz and Broadway) enthusiasts and Hi Fi nuts, there was
now the 33 1/3 rpm Long Playing record.
And we read books.
40 years ago we were still
in the suburbs, and would largely remain there — further
migrations would be more suburb-to-suburb than anything else.
Visiting the city for any reason was becoming a distant memory.
All the department stores had by now opened outlets nearby, and
were frequently beginning to connect themselves to each other
via something called a "mall".
These malls would also feature
a new type of movie theater: rather than the large movie palaces
we were used to, there were new complexes opening that actually
featured more than one screen — you now had a choice of
which movie you wanted to see! Television was, of course, better
than ever. In addition to the five or seven different stations
available, a new thing called "public broadcasting"
was just beginning. Naturally, you needed one of those new fashioned
"UHF" television sets to see it, but the future looked
limitless. This year (1967) was also the first year when all
the prime time shows were being broadcast in color.
For music, the kids were still
listening to the radio, though small portable transistor radios
had become at least as popular as the traditional car radio.
This year would however see a dramatic change in buying and listening
patterns — the kids were beginning to discover FM, as FM
was beginning to discover rock music. And as these new "underground"
stations began playing entire sides of albums, the kids began
buying less 45's and more LP's (long playing records). LP's were
now primarily in stereo as well as high fidelity, and a few audiophiles
even had reel to reel tape decks.
And we read books.
30 years ago those shopping
malls were everywhere, and the old downtowns were sliding into
disrepair. We visited the malls for everything, a pattern we
would actually continue almost to the present day.
For general entertainment,
there was something new. Cable Television had arrived, offering
not only better reception than those antennae we'd been using
for so many years, but something else: for an additional fee,
you could actually subscribe to one or even more (depending on
where you were) specialty channels that actually showed complete
movies without commercials! They would usually show the same
two or three movies for a couple of weeks before replacing them
with a few new ones, just to make sure everyone got a chance
to see the film they wanted. Truly, it was a new and innovative
age.
For music, the car radio had
its greatest rival yet: tape decks. After an initial offering
of 4 track tapes, 8 tracks had taken over in the early 70's,
and by now (1977), people were already beginning to switch to
cassette decks. Unlike 8 tracks, it was fairly easy to purchase
a cassette recorder, which meant that you could actually put
your favorite songs on a single tape — or even (shhh) tape
one of your friends' records!
And we read books.
20 years ago cable had taken
over, and there were now dozens (and more!) of new channels available
to the average viewer. In addition, the Video Tape had caught
on with a vengeance — in a single decade VCR's had evolved
from expensive toys owned by relatively few people into a staple
of every home. The studios had unwittingly created a new type
of commerce in the process — they didn't want to sell their
movies too cheaply, so early films released on video tape were
typically priced at 50 to 70 dollars. This quickly led to a flurry
of stores that would offer films to the public to rent for a
nominal fee.
For music, MTV had changed
the face (no pun intended) of music forever, and there was a
brand new rival to the cassette and LP: the Compact Disc.
And we read books.
10 years ago, the average cable
consumer could now choose between close to a hundred stations,
and something called a DVD was beginning to make some noise.
We still listened to cd's, and indeed the vinyl record had disappeared
from the landscape, and we still shopped the same old malls,
but something had just begun which looked to change a whole lot
of things in the not-too-distant future.
They called it the "internet".
But we still read books.
Nowadays, we still visit supermarkets
and department stores, but there are typically only one or two
chains left in most areas — chains that have in the past
few years gobbled all the other ones up. Naturally, fewer chains
means less of a selection, and we are thus witness to an interesting
phenomenon (most notable this past Holiday Season) whereby the
remaining traditional retail stores seem to be deliberately doing
themselves in by offering less choices and less service, at a
time when more than ever before is available online. Are stores
going to disappear? Certainly not — but they have unforseen
changes ahead...
For general entertainment,
we can now download complete television episodes and movies directly
from the World Wide Web. CD sales have plummeted as more and
more we find ourselves buying only the songs we want online,
and downloading them directly onto ipods.
And we read books.
I trust the obvious common
denominator manifested itself long ago to most of you —
the point is, the traditional book, which was with us way before
all the rest of this stuff, before we'd figured out what to do
with electricity, remains with us, essentially unchanged. We
can of course find stories and even novels on the internet, but
in decades and even centuries past there were always magazines,
etc. that offered alternative modes of reading to past generations.
The good old book, however,
is with us still, and looks to remain so for many years to come.
Happy New Year!
—Joe Nolte
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