h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Birthday Reflections

I turned 65 at ten past midnight this morning. I was born in 1948, 3 years after the end of World War II. Mother's occupation: concert organist. It was the era of a craze for Latin rhythm that propelled Ricky Ricardo to fame and marriage to Lucille Ball. Father's occupation: television technician. Not repairman, technician. I don't suppose anybody owned a set old enough to require repair at the time. I have a photograph of my father holding me at age 3 months; at his elbow is a television set about as long and high as a boombox, but much deeper to accommodate the cathode ray tube. It's turned off; there wasn't much being broadcast in 1949.

I was born before interstate highways, before rock and roll, before suburbs, before transistors, before satellites. There were still candy stores with wooden shelves behind glass, where we dawdled with our daily nickel on our way to the park. I was 11 years old when passenger jets went into operation, and fifteen before I saw my first tape cassette. I watched the Beatles play on the Ed Sullivan show and I watched Kennedy's funeral.

I saw Richard Nixon when he visited my college town. I listened to Jefferson Airplane, scandalised the dorm with the first miniskirt on the premises, smoked marijuana, and had a boyfriend with a 1949 Jeepster convertible. But I missed Woodstock, which happened the same week that Prince Charles had his investiture as Prince of Wales, because I was changing countries, flying to Scotland out of New York on a Vickers VC-10 owned and operated by BOAC.

It was supposed to be a three-week visit but I cancelled my return ticket, got a bedsit in the northern part of Edinburgh (Netherby Road), discovered some students at the Fringe Festival who were from Birmingham and followed them south. I got married. I was in town with Fred watching Spike Milligan when the pub bombs went off in 1974. I got an upper second at the university . The Koreans tried to start a world war again and the Iranians took American hostages, sticking their finger in American politics and ushering in Ronald Reagan. I left England briefly to spend a year working with horses in Corfu.

I learned computer programming. I listened to U2 jam on the back of a flatbed lorry at the Moseley Festival and drove a 1974 Vauxhall Viva that was rusting rather quickly. I lived in Windsor for a while and watched Concorde fly over my bedsit on its way to Heathrow.

I watched Live Aid on a tv in central Florida after I had to leave England in 1984. Mom died and my stepdad bought a PC with a shelf-yard of hardback manuals, an 8086 processor that needed a separate chip for floating point operations, a greenscreen monitor and two floppy drives. He never stopped upgrading and was pretty good at AutoCAD by the time he died in 1997. CD players came on the market, although there weren't a lot of CDs to buy. Ry Cooder put out the first digitally produced album that wasn't classical music. A space shuttle blew up. I was a computer programmer and care giver. The Koreans tried to start another World War. AIDS patients started to get some respect and suddenly cell phones started to shrink from bricks to, well, what they are now.

I moved to New Mexico in 2001. It was the first time I'd consciously chosen a place and thought, I think I'll go live there. And that is why I'm in a nursing home in Albequerque.

Can you remember what the big technological innovations were in your lifetime?

Happy birthday.


I'm not half your age, but I remember when I was little, people talking about things just like vynil records, but small and shiny.
Now, kids talk about things from long ago, sort of like big black CDs.

I remember the Amstrad computer we had at home (I must have been ten-ish).

And this new thing that came about a while later, called the world wide web.

Happy Burpday Lil.

Happy birthday!

What a fabulous trip down memory lane. For some reason it reminded me of the bit in Forrest Gump with him popping up at all sorts of historical moments. I wish my memory at 46 was even half as good as yours - a lot of my earlier years are already a blur with just the odd recollection like a snapshot.

You sound so, so

Deb

I got something wrong. The very first PCs had 8088 processors, not 8086s.

When I was a child everything was on cassette, but also remember that dad had fairy tales on vinyl which he let me listen to every now and then (he'll turn 63 this month).

When I was in elementary school we got satellite TV, and a few years later mum secretly bought a video recorder when dad was away for a few days.

My cousin already had a game boy at that time. I never got the 1st generation one. I think I was 12 when my parents gave in and let my uncle buy one for me.

At about that time most of the girls who went to school with me got their first mobile phone... oh no, first everyone had a pager. Also, when they called home they only let the phone ring, then hung up and let their parents call them back.
I was 19 when I got my first mobile phone.
I can't remember how old I was when my uncle had this huge telephone in his car. It was very special.

I got my first computer when i was about 16. It was an old one which my other uncle brought from school where they were thrown out. it didn't even have windows and I never figured out how it works. I had already used computers at school at that time.
It took longer until I had Internet. It was after I started uni, must have been 2005. But I still remember the dial up my friend had at home.

You were born the same year my parents were--about 8 months later

I never acquired that generational feel, probably cos I never had kids. I have good friends who are young enough for me to have borne them. But that's something I have to stop and consciously think about.

Having only 3 years less than you I can agree with all your observations.

I might have added Elvis on Ed Sullivan, the Cuban missile crisis, landing on the moon and the attacks of 9/11

But that might have been where I was at the time.

Happy B'Day

F S

Happy Birthday! sorry to have come in so late


I remember life before central heating, colour televisions, when man made fibres were novelties, telephones were kept in the hall, not your pocket and much much else that we take for granted. I even remember a time before women wore tights, when stockings came with suspenders.


But we wouldn't have had the pleasure of knowing you dear Asteroid lil, as our letters would have taken weeks to be sent across the Atlantic, unless we'd wanted speed, in which case we'd have had to use those thin blue bits of airmail letter stationery, that came with its own funny envelope.

anyway, have some cake donut>

The day of the Moon landing, I was wandering toward Princes Street in Edinburgh. There was a lorry offloading goods on a side street, and the driver smiled at me and sang "Everyone's gone to the moon..."

I knew it was momentous, of course, but I was in the middle of making the decision to call my parents and tell them not to wait for me at the airport.

Then there was wandering into the kitchen one morning and turning on the radio in time to hear the dying-away final chord of "A Day in the Life", which was allowed to run its course. And then the voice of the BBC 1 DJ, thick with anger, announcing John Lennon's death.

Simulpost!

My word yes, the arrival of color television. Have you noticed, some people still like their talking heads to be bright orange! It ain't color teevee unless it's florid color teevee...

The first thing I watched on colour television was Star Trek - I didn't know it was always the Red Shirts that carcked it until then

My Great Aunt was the first one in our family to have a colour television.

We often visited on Sunday evening to watch 'Bonanza' one of the first US shows to be broadcast in colour. there was a certain Sunday in September when Chevrolet, General Motors, sponsored an advertisement for their new models. In those day any kid worth his salt could Identify any car by the shape of the body. tail lights and headlights at 100 yards (metres). The designs changed radically each year. In the 1960's they started keeping the same basic design for several years, today they rarely change from decade to decade, at least on the outside. Maybe that is just being

F S

No, you're right. The ghost of Dinah Shore is singing in my ear, "See the USA in a Chevrolet..."

Our family car, a 1954 Ford station wagon (estate car to the Brits), made it to 1960 and thereafter it was always an Oldsmobile station wagon, a huge Detroit beast. Car maker and genre are both out of production.

When I was a wee kid, there was only B/W TV, and only one channel. And only one news desk. And only Czechoslovakian string puppet shows for the amusement of children.

I was 3 years old when Sweden switched from left hand traffic to right hand traffic.

When I first started w*rking in the hotel business, they still had those old switch boards with a lot of cords:

http://kadermo.files.wordpress.com/2009/08/sn205033.jpg

Errata: Not U2, UB40. Half typo, half mind-o. UB40 lived in Balsall Heath, right by Moseley, and they played the festivals before they made it big. I've always loved the timbre of Aly Campbell's voice.