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Monday, July 15, 2024

Ele Ludemann: Old enough to remember


My father was old enough to remember horse drawn fire engines.

He lived to see space exploration become a reality and while he didn’t own a computer or a mobile phone they were becoming common place before he died.

He grew up in a house without a telephone.

I’m old enough to remember when most house had only one phone. It was fixed to the wall and numbers were dialed.

I’m old enough to remember travelling overseas when calling home – usually collect – was so expensive it was saved for emergencies or very special occasions.

I now own a mobile phone that I can use in many other countries – for a reasonable price if I”m not using much data, and it does all this:



I wonder what obsolete things children born today will remember when they are old and what technological advances we can’t imagined will be common place for them?

Ele Ludemann is a North Otago farmer and journalist, who blogs HERE - where this article was sourced.

2 comments:

Robert Arthur said...

In the 1950s I went with my parents who were considering buying a car from a recent widowed elderlyfriend. The lady got to reminiscing about her past and I was intrigued at the tales of rustic rural life, riding a horse to school, no cars at all, no radio etc It struck me the lady had lived through a period of change never equalled. The very exotic modernistic car (Austin A90 Atlantic) seemed to exaggerate the difference. In the 1950s many smaller towns had manual phones where you stated the number to the operator who gave a morse coded ring on a party line. My grandmother had difficuty with the codes, to the annoyance of others. Dunno how she would have coped with a smartphone, a major problem for many today) (In very small communities the caller stated the name and the operatr directed the call to wherever the person was known to be!)
Probably the greatest change has been the absence of significant war sacrifice. And the huge increase of unpunished unlawful behaviour. And the promotion of maori to the superior race.

Anonymous said...

@ Robert Arthur

"And the promotion of maori to the superior race."

On a light hearted post about technology changes... just can't miss an opportunity can you?