The Pecan Park Eagle

As the new year approaches, I am always reminded of past issues that no longer matter at all; little differences in our perception of time that never really get resolved on the emotional level; and things that have come into our lives that have have everything about how we live and made it different. They all qualify as subjects that add up together as “Much Adieu About Nothing”.

Allow me to demonstrate. Only time this morning prevents this one from becoming a much longer list:

1) Remember Y2K? For about the last five years of the 20th century, we went through this socio-scientific angst that all our new personal computer and business-governmental dependence upon the Internet was going to come crashing down with the onset of the 21st century because all our electronic data systems had been inadequately coded from the start to also reach their outer limit with the coming of the new millennium. Our fears about this total data collapse invited visions of a digital Armageddon with the coming of the new century in 2001.

Didn’t happen. The super geeks solved it. We flew into the 21st century without losing a thing, increasing our dependency on the new technology exponentially. We went from being a culture that disconnects from others on our own to one in which we use our ubiquitous cell phones for texting and Twitter as electronic ways to disconnect from people who are immediately present in preference for constant electronic contact with people we’ve never actually met.

2) High Definition Plasma TV. HDTV has done it. With big, wide, never clearer HD screens at play, it is now possible to watch movies and sports better at home and a lot more comfortably than at the theaters and ball parks. In fact, If you end up with a seat near the end zone at a place like Reliant Stadium in Houston, you will most likely end up watching most of the game on one of the two giant screens, and not on the field. Pretty soon, you will also figure out that you could be watching the game more comfortably at home – and without people standing up to block your view.

3) When does a new century begin and end? The 21st century began on January 1, 2001 and it will end upon the completion of December 31, 2100. Still, like it always has been, most or many people will again continue to see the start of the new century as arriving on January 1, 2100. The ongoing confusion is helped along by the fact that every century change is ushered in by an almost entirely new set of people than the ones who were here for the last big century jump.

4) Microwave Ovens. Our only son grew up completely after the coming of the microwave oven. One day, when he was about eight, he asked me: “Dad, how did people cook their food before we had the microwave?” It wasn’t surprising. This was the same kid that asked me at age five, “Was it hard getting from your car to inside of the mall when we still had dinosaurs?”

5) Personal Telephones. They have changed everything, even how we write plays, movies, and fictional books. Check out the classic movie channels sometime and witness how many old movie plots evolve around a character’s inability to get to a phone or borrow one. Can’t write that into a storyline today.

Please chip in your own favorite deal-breaker changes, inventions, or hard-to-grasp simple points that keep recurring.