I now understand why my grandparents were resistant to change. When what you’ve always known is taken away, and the familiar is replaced.

My grandparents saw many things become common. The telephone, automobiles, airplanes, radio and television. I’m sure the things they witnessed seemed like magic. But what’s whizzing by now seems almost unbelievable.

On July 20, 1969, my parents let me stay up to watch the first man walk on the moon. I remember asking my dad if it was real. He chuckled. Because to him, I’m sure it also seemed unbelievable.

I was seven and had watched all of the sci-fi movies I could get my hands on. So to me, this moment in history seemed much like a movie.

By the time I was in junior high, VCRs were available. Suddenly, you could watch any movie you wanted in your own home.

My grandparents were born just a few years after the Wright brothers first proved that man could fly in 1903. We landed on the moon just 65 years later.

Our red brick house on Beech Street was typical of most homes. When we moved in, there was no air conditioning.

My dad worked the graveyard shift. He slept during the day. I vividly remember when we got air conditioning. It was a particularly hot day and so we had all of the fans on and the windows open.

Around lunchtime, my father appeared from the bedroom, left in his 1952 Chevy pickup, went to Mr. Bryant’s hardware store, bought an air conditioner, came home, installed it in my parents’ bedroom, turned it on, and went back to sleep.

We got more window units soon after. My grandparents thought that was extravagant.

“Back in my day, we sweated and we walked,” they’d say. “We weren’t in a rush. Today, everybody’s in such a dern rush. And nobody wants to sweat.”

Driving a car was for those in a really big rush who didn’t want to sweat.

My father often told the story of his grandfather, who was born in the 1800s. The story goes that my great grandfather bought a Model A and tried to drive it once. After he wound up on a woodpile, he never drove again. He said that’s what his boys were for – driving him if he was in a hurry. Which he never was.

In the 1960s, my dad worked in computer programming. Computers then ran on stacks of what are called punch cards. Every time you wanted a computer to do a task, the punch cards had to be loaded into the system.

Now, we have much more computing power in a cell phone than my dad worked with in a huge building.

My parents and grandparents witnessed a lot of changes, but in the last 60 years, the technological advancements are significant.

Personal computers are common. The world is connected by the Internet. Movies are available on both. We have space stations. Reusable rockets. Electric vehicles. Hybrid vehicles. Self-driving vehicles. Automation. There’s 3-D printing. Organ transplants. Robotic surgery. DNA crime solving.

The list goes on.

I used to be the one trying to calm the waters with the older family members.

“Here, I’ll show you,” I’d say. “It’s not difficult.”

But to them, it was. A VCR flashing 12:00 o’clock was like driving a Model A onto a woodpile.

Today, I have my own woodpiles. It seems as if every time I learn how to do something, it gets changed. “Improved,” I’m told.

I finally learn how to operate my cell phone, and when I get a new one, nothing is where it was on the previous one. By the time I learn that, then it’s time for a new phone.

My aunt bought a new SUV. She asked me to drive it into town. It took me 15 minutes to figure out whether I had any gas. I couldn’t find the gas gauge. When I did and saw I needed gas, I couldn’t figure out how to open the cover on the gas cap.

These aren’t problems I ever had with my 1972 Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme.

I know what young people think today when they hear an older person claim that things are too complicated. I used to be that young person. But I also now know what previous generations were thinking. Because I’m now that guy.

And today’s young folks will get there. They’ll eventually see. But it may take their self-driving car climbing onto a woodpile before they do.

 

© 2025 John Moore

John’s book titles include Puns for Groan People and two volumes about growing up in the South called Write of Passage. They are available on Amazon. Contact him at John@TheCountryWriter.com.