Brve Nw Wrld

Many of you may remember that I had a side blog called "Wierd" (this is the way the word "weird" was spelled by many of my Wheeler High School friends back in the 70's. For some reason, this word appeared a lot in my yearbook.) The theme of the blog is growing up in East Cobb County, Georgia in the 70's. But, as the Lord said, a man cannot serve two blogs. I wrote only two pieces. One was about me getting stuck in my locker in Jr. High School. Here's the other one. It is about texting.


One of the biggest differences between now and the 70’s is that back then nobody was in a social network, unless you counted school, home and church.

The whole idea of everybody walking around with a phone in their pocket was as Twilight Zone to us as moving spoons with your mind. Having a phone that was a combination typewriter, camera, and computer would have been too ‘far out’ (another 70’s phrase) for us to comprehend.

But today, every kid walks around with their head bent down typing away with their thumbs. I think that we should call the kids born in the 90’s "Generation Thumbs", because they use their thumbs to crank out messages. Our basic thumb messages were “Thumbs Up” (good), “Thumbs Down” (bad), and “Thumbs Sideways” (give me a ride and I hope you are not a criminal).

Kids think it is funny when one of us (old people) just can’t understand the concept of the camera phone that you can type on and look at the internet. When we were coming up, computers took up entire buildings if not city blocks or entire states like Rhode Island.

We were the test monkeys for the computerized tests that determined your future. You had to use a number 2 pencil because a number 1 pencil was just not good enough. Shut up! Fill in the bubble that represents the right answer, but do not have a smudge outside of the bubble. This would cause the computer to explode. I always use my deficient bubble filling out skills to explain my SAT score.

There was band back in the 70’s called Bread and it was your 1.0 soft rock band. They had a ton of hit records back then, most not making a lot of sense like “Baby, I’m A Want You” and “If”. I’m convinced a lot of 33-39 year old people are alive today due to the Providence of God and David Gates singing “If a picture paints a thousand words then why can’t I paint you?”

David Gates was the lead singer of Bread. Mr. Gates had a high tenor voice. He was also from Oklahoma. After Bread had their day in the sun, Gates took his bread (sorry), I mean, dough (can't help myself) and bought a cattle ranch to become a working cowboy. Can you imagine at the end of long hard day punching cattle, all of the cowboys are around the campfire and the cook says, "Mr. Gates, why don't you sing up a song?". Gates gets his guitar and starts singing, "It don't matter to me if you really feel that you need some time to be free.."

Bread's most hilarious song was “Diary”. Pardon me while I write in brackets for my younger readers. [ A diary was a journal people used to keep to write down their innermost thoughts. Now we call it a "blog".] “Diary” was about this guy who finds a girl’s diary “underneath a tree and started reading about me”. The song meanders along about how great this was until he got to the part where he realized she wasn’t writing about him.

Young people today would have no idea what that would be like. They announce their relationships on Facebook. If “Diary” came out today it would be called “iPhone”and you would hear: “I found your iPhone underneath the tree where you were texting about me”

One thing that bothers me is how superior young people think they are when it comes to texting.

Back in the 70’s, you still had to learn how to write a letter and communicate a response with properly spelled words. Even the hippie teachers taught it.("Hey Man, I know it is Fascist, but like, we got to know what you mean, you know”?) Now you just write in a way that you think Prince would like.

A friend of mine wrote a text to her son one day. It took her almost an hour to complete it. It went like this:

Taylor Tyler
4545 Bonnie Meadow Road
Mayretta, GA 30065

Dearest Taylor,

I would like to take this opportunity to express to you my joy as to having a son as brilliant as you. People stop me in the store to tell me what a great young man you have become and soon look forward to voting for you for President.

Please be advised that we are having dinner as a family this evening and we were wondering if you would be in attendance? Dinner will be served around seven. May we set a place for you?

Again, you are a great son and your father and I pray hour long prayers of thanksgiving that you are our child.

Sincerely,

Your Mother


This was Taylor’s response:

Thnx. No. L8er.-T