I'm a 30-something, and havent experienced much more than the general membership here, I'm sure, but I get the most amazing "stop and think about this for a second...." moments when I consider how much our world has changed over the lives of us all.
For me - I've lived without a cell phone. I was in high school when people who had pagers were considered to be drug dealers. I grew up with Oregon Trail in my teens. Most people didn't have computers at home. The mountain I lived on didn't have cable TV, so we had only 3 channels. Our roads weren't paved, and Saturday afternoons were spent jumping into the river swinging off vines. Call waiting and caller ID were a really big deal, but we didn't get them because they cost more money.
My grandma tells me they didn't have wheelchairs. She was a nurse in her white cap and skirt and tights. She had an alcoholic, abusive husband at a time when that was shameful to even mention. My grandpa tells me no one on his street had a TV. It was a really big deal when someone got one, and everyone whispered about it.
My 90-something patient told me about how so much of healthcare took place at home because you really, really had to be messed up for mom to go get the horses and carriage ready to go to the doctor. She got in big trouble once when she broke her arm falling from a tree.
What have you lived through? What pieces of history stay with you?
I remember taking a roll of film to get developed.
I remember playing outside until it got dark with the neighbor kids.
I remember going to watch cartoons and instead saw 9/11 change the world.
I remember mobile phones were for business people with corporate jobs. And the phones were.. Phones.
I remember dial up internet people...
Me too, me too. Great topic!
I remember seeing Aladdin in the theater!!
And jeez, I had forgotten about dial up! I remember getting my first computer and printer- with the paper that had perforated edges. We printed banners all the time!!
I remember when Ronald Reagan was shot. I wanted to watch the news on TV like the older kids and I couldn't wait to be in the know about current events. Then a few years later when the Challenger exploded I was on phone duty that day and I answered the principal's phone when it rang and it was Jason's mom wanting to talk to our principal about the space shuttle which confused me but then they brought the TV in on a rolling cart and I watched it explode about 300 times.
I remember paper charts. Thick paper charts in big heaps on carts and tables and counters that came after you made a phone call.
I remember doing home care before cell phones were in wide use. They existed, but all I had was a pager.
I remember ambien packets in open plastic containers.
I remember having no translators. We had patients who spoke other languages and nothing but a handwritten piece of paper with a few words like "pain" on it that we could point to. If we were lucky, the patient's family would bring in a translation dictionary.
The Shaun and David Cassidy debate..who was cuter. Then--I thought Shaun..now--looking back David!
Ha ha ha!
At the time, I was all about Shaun, but my adult eyes look back and say "DAVID"!!!
... and now I'm a little embarrassed about my Shaun love
I had a Shaun Cassidy poster on my wall. It was huge and there he was smiling his big gummy grin. I could not undress in front of my poster! It bothered me so bad, I took an eraser and wiped his teeth out! Don't ask me why I didn't just get rid of the poster... I was just a dopey kid.
9/11 keeps popping up here and I didn't want to include it in my nostalgia. My friend called me that morning and said turn on the TV. I did so and it took me a minute to process it. I saw the second plane hit on TV. I looked down at my baby, who was still crawling at the time, and wondered what kind of world I had brought her into. The skies were silent of planes. Businesses were closed. Flags were unfurled.
A few months later we took a trip to a country on the other side of the world. Because of our last names and our destination, we were targeted for baggage searches at every stop in the U.S. both there and back. I had to step aside, dump the contents of my backpack and the diaper bag on the table while people stared at us. I was scared to fly, so scared, but we had already bought the tickets and it was the only way to see distant family across the sea. The U.S. Embassy in the city we flew to had sandbags piled up in front of it 5 feet high, and soldiers from the county we were visiting were posted outside with big guns.
It took away my innocence and my idealism. It made me realize that some people are still considered more American than others, even if we all grew up reading Nancy Drew books and collecting Lisa Frank stickers.
Glycerine82, LPN
1 Article; 2,188 Posts
I feel so old.