Day 206

Day 206: Yesterday, I attempted to enlist the biceps of the family to churn some homemade ice cream, in honor of our pioneer ancestors. My son, who is 30, and a father himself, said "Mom, if the pioneers could have plugged it in, they would have."

He had a point. So, we plugged the ice cream maker into the outlet and let electricity do the work. "As long as everybody realizes this is a blessing," I reprimanded, pointing at the outlet, "then I guess the lesson is learned."

When my kids were little, my son Taylor asked me what it was like to cross the plains. First, I was offended that he thought I was ALIVE in the late 1840's, but then I settled down and explained what I imagined it would have been like to cross the plains. Life has certainly changed since then, even in my imagination.

In the mere 53 years I've inhabited earth, life has changed, too. When I was little, you were lucky to have one television in the house, and really lucky if it was color, instead of black and white. If you watched a movie, it was in a movie theater. If you watched cartoons, it was Saturday morning. In high school, VCRs and movies on VHS tapes became available to rent. Yes, we rented the VCR and lugged it home and hooked it to the TV, watched our VHS movie, rewound the movie, and returned the whole kit-and-kaboodle to the rental store. If there was a television show we wanted to watch, on one of four stations our antenna picked up, then we planned ahead and sat down and turned on the TV and watched it. There was no On Demand or TiVo or Hulu or Netflix. That's right, kids, not even Netflix.

If we needed to go shopping, we drove to a store. There was no Amazon Prime with two-day shipping.

If we liked a song on the radio, we went to a record store and bought the album, brought it home, and listened to it on the record player. There was a short stint with 8-track players, which gave way to cassette tapes, and those were pretty darn modern and amazing.

We didn't have a microwave until I was in sixth grade. No instant oatmeal. No microwave popcorn. No heating of leftovers in 45 seconds. If you wanted hot leftovers, you put them in a pan and turned on the stove, which seemed much more modern than building a fire in the stove to heat food, or toiling over a campfire to heat food.

If we wanted to read a book, we went to the library or a bookstore. Now? I can carry around hundreds of e-books on my cell phone.

Ah, the cell phone. What would we do without them? The topic for tomorrow, I'm afraid. And just in case my son is wondering, "No, Taylor. I was not alive when Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone."

#momscompanytowels

#pioneertomodernday

#inthelast50years