When in Rome Wednesday: My, how Rome's changed

Apologies in advance to those for whom this will incite feelings of "being old," but I am embarking on my last month as a twenty-something.  Twenty-nine will soon be gone, and 30 will be the new norm.

Reflective? Yes. Sentimental? Maybe a little. Needing something to blog about? Most definitely.

Brace yourself for an understatement: November 2009 looks a bit different than November 1979. I remember once when I was very young, we visited Chicago's Museum of Science and Industry.  I was given a printout of what made the news on my birthday. All I remember is something about the Pope.  So, what follows is an admittedly incomplete list of the areas in which "Rome" - which on this blog takes the meaning of my current locale and its customs and peculiarities - has changed.

Technology.  Probably the most obvious area, but still worth mentioning.  When I was little, the concept of a phone that folded in on itself and could fit in your pocket seemed like something out of the Jetsons.  (Which, by the way, was my favorite show back then. It isn't now for the sole reason I can't find it airing anywhere.)  Now, my little girls take our old phones, flip them open, and begin "talking" to their friends.  They know exactly what to do with them; it is just a part of their world.  At age 4, I would have looked at such an item and figured it was a G.I. Joe toy missing many pieces.

Similarly, last month, the wife left Aislynn at the computer watching a show, and came back to find she had completed multiple levels of an online American Girl game.  She just knew how to operate the mouse, keyboard, etc.  It is a part of her generation's home life from birth.  When I was in kindergarten, I remember very well several grades at Carlin Park Elementary sharing a single computer.  (Yes, we used it to play Oregon Trail.)  It was wheeled from room to room on a heavy steel cart.  Once a classmate of mine caught a bout of the jimmylegs and kicked a wire dangling underneath.  The computer sputtered and died, and the classmate was duly ostracized.  Their ire stemmed from the fact virtually no one then had a computer in their home.  Today, virtually no one is without.

The proliferation of the computer and Internet has brought numerous other changes - some within only the last three years - that would be the stuff of fantasy in the early 1980s.  Rather than explore the issues in this post, I'll direct you to my posts here, here, and here.

Television.  I mention it here largely because I believe what entertains us - and, more specifically, what we allow to entertain us - speaks volumes about us as a culture and us as a society. If I'm right, I think it's an easy case to make that we are a far more crass, vulgar culture than we were 30 years ago.

Frankly, there are certain things you can say on prime time TV you couldn't say 30, 20, or even ten years ago.  There are certain things you can show today you couldn't then, too.  I know mine is not the first generation to lament this, nor am I the first in my generation to lament it, but the effect of this loosening of our toleration threshold seems excruciatingly obvious.  I've said before the Jon and Kate debacle is a clear example of the laissez-faire attitude Americans increasingly exhibit regarding the traditional family, and it pains me to think what challenges to this fundamental tenet of our society and our faith my children will face.

Again, much more could be and has been written on this topic by people far more qualified and eloquent than I.

Politics.  At the risk of nauseating any historians reading this, it seems to me a few threads of American political life in the late 1970s are actually back again in 2009.  Consider: Iran is once again/still a problem.  The ruling political party is searching to bring the country out of an unpopular war everyone assumed would be over by now.  A president inaugurated amidst high hope has seen his popularity plummet dramatically, even as he invites comparisons to that same president of three decades ago in policy and practice.  There isn't much new under the sun.

And to be sure, there are some things I'm glad haven't changed.  My dad is still the pastor of a growing church in northeastern Indiana, just as he was 30 years ago and further.  My parents are still together and in good health, either of which is becoming increasingly rare among my peers.  And optimists still root for the Cubs.

People in every generation reflect on the past and hypothesize about the future.  It will be fascinating to hear Aislynn's and Isla's perspective in 30 years about where life was and where it is.  So here's to another 30.  And here's hoping blogging is still cool then so I can write about it.

You feel me?


AF