I have decided that us "old" people know more "technology" than the younger one these days. They don't know what is what like actually have to get up from the chair to change TV channels. True, there were only three channels back then, thank goodness. The only problem in our family was fighting over who had to lose their good seat to get up to change the channel. But my age really showed itself when a 21-year-old young woman came to my house and I went to put a record on the record player for her to hear a song. Keep in my mind this was a well-educated straight A college student who was once a math major making this remark. "Is that a record!? I have never seen a real record." I gave her "the look" and continued to put on the record as she came over to take a closer look at this "marvel" of old technology. The real surprise came when she asked, "How do you move to another song when you want to skip one." After a long sigh. I showed her the grooves cut in the record and the now hard to find needles that caused it to play.
This experience gave me greater understanding as I remember a friend of mine telling me one that she told her grandson that he sounded like a broken record. He just looked up as only an inquisitive grandkid can, and in all innocence asked, "Grandma, what is a record?"
As my own children have grown older I have realized they will never know the purple fingers that stain as the ditto master is cranked to produce copies that you can barely read, or the carbon paper we had to use in school to generate extra copies of reports. I remember my son, the 24 year-old computer guru being asked a few years ago to load paper in a typewriter and having to ask for help. I miss the little ringing sound at the end of a line as the return carriage was pushed back to start a new line.
I truly do not believe that this younger generation could survive the real estate industry if we had to go back to the "old days." Their first challenge would be to conduct business without a cell phone. Throughout the week I would keep loose change in my car in case I had to stop at a pay phone to call another agent about a listing. And think of this generation having to wait five minutes to connect with a 1,200 baud connection. It would drive them crazy; not to mention the thermo paper printouts that faded at the end of the day. Though I do miss the six-foot rolls of printout at times. Fax machines finally became a trend, though many offices held off until the last minute thinking it might be a fad. It was not unusual for agents to drive many miles back and forth to offices to wait on contracts being accepted and signed.
Agents complain today if listings are not on the Internet within an hour.
One of the veteran HAR employees was telling me about the days when the agents filled out listings sheets, brought them to HAR where they were retyped, and taken to the printer who compiled the infamous MLS books. You were lucky if the property was still on the market by the time the books came out.
No microwaves. No drive through McDonalds. No garage door openers. Most families had one car and one TV. So where have we gone? Well, for one thing, I can sit at my computer at nearly midnight and make the deadline for this article. No stamps. No envelope. No driving at midnight to put it in a mail-slot so it can be at the office first thing in the morning.
So, as for me and my house, we choose the latter-day technology. But I would like for them to try and survive for one day in the "olden days" just so they can appreciate all we do know.
