Where have you gone?

The West changes, and with it our habits drift silent and unmarked. Was it really a simpler time? Do we age almost unknowingly, our losses slipping by, unnumbered?

Kodachrome. What have you done, Kodak? No more Kodachrome? There’s still some color film to be out there, ever more rare, now almost exotic. Remember Kodachrome with ASA 10? Photographs of Christmas lights, 20 seconds at f8? The cartridge into a mailer to Decatur, Georgia, and your slides back before Christmas Eve. Projected against a white wall, oohs and ahhs. My word processor doesn’t recognize “kodachrome.”

Western Union. Telegrams slipped away quietly when long-distance telephone service became self-dialed. In my youth telegrams were quicker, more reliable than telephones. Remember those calls home, patched from city to city, operator to operator? And then, nobody home? For years, Western Union remained useful for sending money to stranded relatives. How would you quickly send money to someone today? I don’t know.

Radio Antennas. Or aerials, sometimes. In south Texas, you couldn’t get WOAI in San Antonio without a good antenna (120 on the dial of your Atwater Kent). The antenna in your automobile ran under the upholstery above your head. Later, a whip sticking out of your fender. Driving through west Kansas at night we heard KVOO in Tulsa; further west, only static. Now that whip antenna is gone, too. How do they do it? (Where is KVOO?).

I stand on the sidelines. Join me, and watch our past drift away. Typewriters? VCRs? Little Orphan Annie? Printed books? What next?

Please tell me it’s getting better!

Dac Crossley.
1/8/2010

“A ruffled mind makes a restless pillow.” - Charlotte Brontë

Comments

[ira guy]

My children have discovered that parents can still send money via western union (or by Walmart also...surprise surprise)

[Jan Okey]

I remain a radio person. Could not exist without NPR. In the 50's - if conditions were right I could pick up a radio station in Del Rio, Texas...........I lived in
Wisconsin !!!!!! Good times.