> I've sometimes wondered what life was like 100 or 200 years ago--or even 50, for that matter. One thing that's different now is that until about 150 years ago, technological and societal change was very slow.
> My parents and I went to South Dakota this summer for my brother's wedding. Even traveling by comfortable car on high-speed roads, it took 14 hours of travel time. And yet our ancesters managed to build the fourth-largest, by area, country on Earth, and they did a great deal of it on foot.
> I'm sure that our children or grandchildren will wonder how we got along without the New, Improved, Universal Wiget.

I guess a short memory helps. If I strain my brain, I can remember when we didn't have a microwave oven. Or TV, cell phones, jet airliners, automatic transmissions, or air conditioned cars, homes, schools, stores, and offices.

I was born when there were no pressurized airplanes, and trains were pulled by steam engines. Highway were dirt or two-lane macadam. Most highways didn't have a stripe down the middle, much less on the side.

But we weren't in the dark ages. I was born in a hospital with elevators and telephones. Some cars had radios and houses had large, airy rooms and there were nice porches front and back. Kids played in the yard had hardly ever got kidnapped. You could step on a streetcar and go anywhere in town for a nickle. Buses and passenger trains could take you to the next town.

But I still don't see how we survived without the internet. I try not to remember.
Howard