Dear Grandchildren

Mike Lewis inquired in his blog entry, “Things We’ll Say to Our Grand Kids,” (Link) about the things will tell our grandchildren about today that the grandchildren will be unfamiliar with. This was inspired by a Wired magazine article. (Link) Mike and Wired each came up with some good ones.

Here are some that I expect to say:

• My electric toothbrush used to be the size of a banana.
• It used to cost a lot of money to travel into outer space.
• Things used to wear out before nanotechnology.
• We all used to drive individual cars.
• The weather wasn’t always completely under our control.
• Sports leagues weren’t always international, but were merely national.
• There used to be farmers in America.
• Batters only lasted a few hours before needing to be recharged.
• Gay marriage was only permitted in three states in 2009.
• Kids used to have to go to a physical school, not just join in online.
• I used to buy text books, not just download them to my tablet multiple use device.
• In my day, health care wasn’t what it is today.
• We used to regularly replace light bulbs.
• There were only two main political parties when I started voting.
• Not many people recycled when I was growing up.
• There was much less green space than there is now.
• There used to be these things called traffic jams.
• My boss used to make me go to the office.
• I used to only work for one company at a time.
• There were only 50 states when I was younger.
• I’m not sure I like these new smell televisions.

Here are some that I hope to say:

• There used to be (such-and-such) disease.
• We cured global warming by…
• There used to be wars in which humans fought each other in hand-to-hand combat.
• Hunger used to be a problem.
• Racism? Sexism? You’re not aware of these?
• We used to cut down trees to make paper.