| In the not so distant past, communication | | | | busy day ahead of me and returned to the same |
| between family and friends came in the form of | | | | depressing thought. There were too few hours |
| long journal like letters. News about health and | | | | and too many obligations. I remembered with |
| crops and general gossip required painstaking | | | | some chagrin that because she didn't have to go |
| recording with messy cumbersome pens and inks | | | | outside for water, great-grandmother considered |
| that stained fingers and dried slowly. So slowly in | | | | the hand pump at the sink a timesaving device. |
| fact, that the writer often used a special tool | | | | But wait, hadn't science and technology given me |
| called an ink blotter. This type of communication | | | | all the timesaving devices I need? What would |
| took time. Was there more than twenty-four | | | | great-grandmother have done? I'm a list maker, |
| hours in a 'good old day'? | | | | so I decided that rather than describe every |
| I decided to do some checking. It surprised me to | | | | chore, I'd create a little 'before and after' list. |
| find that life expectancy in the 1900s in the US | | | | If it gets dark, I turn on a light. My |
| for a middle-income white male was around 50, a | | | | great-grandmother filled the kerosene lamp |
| year longer for white females. That number was | | | | before lighting it. |
| considerably lower for the rest of the population. | | | | I nuke my breakfast. GG gathered eggs. She |
| Since females generally wrote the newsy letters | | | | didn't milk cows, but her neighbor did. |
| that kept families in touch, I looked at their | | | | I do my laundry by throwing everything in the |
| schedules, choosing working class families with | | | | machine and pressing a button. Does the word |
| limited public school educations, much like my own. | | | | washboard mean anything to you? |
| First thing in the morning, I want...scratch that...I | | | | I order my clothes online. Great-grandmother |
| need coffee. I prepare it the night before so that | | | | made the family's clothes and often took them |
| in my morning stupor I have only to push a | | | | apart to make new ones. |
| button and wait a few minutes. My | | | | If I get cold, I turn up the thermostat. After |
| great-grandmother filled a ceramic-coated coffee | | | | warming herself by splitting wood, GG only |
| pot from a hand pump at the kitchen sink. She | | | | needed to build a small fire. |
| stoked the coal stove to heat the water and | | | | The list exhausted me and gave me a headache, |
| used a hand grinder to crush the beans. Can you | | | | but it didn't tell me what I wanted to know: Why |
| imagine how long the line would have been at | | | | don't I have time to answer my emails? Maybe |
| Starbucks? | | | | there's software out there that will help. I'll check |
| As I sat with my coffee this morning and thought | | | | online. |
| about this time dilemma, I also thought about the | | | | |