Was that always there

"Was that always there?" Is going to be the title of my memoir. If I ever write one. Perhaps this might be something I would write about. I’m just going to go with it and see where this blog ends up.

I was just thinking about the fact that I have only used social media for a year. I know for most people that seems strange but I have never been good with what is trending.

Social media to be honest has always made me a little leery. Which is not a surprise, and maybe I will date myself here a bit. But in the late 90s when I was in high school, the year I graduated our school library got two brand new computers. There was this kid who I had several classes with who knew how to use it. None of us really even knew its existence. Or, maybe just did not pay attention. I ain’t going to lie to you, he knew how to get on line and most of us did not.

It was not for me. I was happy with the card catalog, thank you. I don’t mean on the computer. I am talking old school, where you had to know the subject, title, or author. I miss that, where you looked up a subject then it would lead you to the title and author. Then you had to write down the call number. Those were the times when if a book was not on the shelf then it mean someone checked it out. You could not really ask the librarian do you know if someone checked out the book because back in my day kids, the librarian did not have a computer to look that up right away. Instead the librarian would have to look through the library check out cards. Most the time I did not bother because I did not want to have the librarian go through all the trouble.

Yep that’s how it was. When you were ready to check out a book, the librarian would pull out the library card write your name with the due date. The card would have the title of the book and the author. Then the librarian would stamp the library card holder with the due date.

When we wanted to write notes to our friends we did not have cell phones. There was no such thing as texting, we had to use paper and pen. Gee wiz, we still had microfilm in the school library! Kids for those of you who are not familiar with microfilm this was google before google. When we wanted to look up older newspaper articles and such we would have to look everything up on a film that was kind of like a photo negative. That’s usually how I describe it.

That just got me thinking when high school we still had typing classes! By my last year of school we did have computers in the class room. We would do all our typing assignments on the computer then print them out.

I know that computers were around, but where I grew up only people who could afford it had computers. Most of what I learned about computers I did not learn until I got to college. Which was two years before the whole Y2K thing. It was strange as I would sit there and print things from the college’s computer I could always tell who had more experience with computers.

In the early 2000s we finally got our own computer. My brother was in high school by then. So you can pretty much imagine, he is the one who taught me most of the other things I have learned about computers.

The moral of the story is it’s okay. Well in my humble opinion, it’s okay to ask for help. You don’t have to know everything in the world. The point is to always want to learn and develop when you can.

…. Given today’s topics, maybe I should call my memoir …. Kids, ask your parents.