The Everyday Miracle of Instant Communication

A few minutes ago (6:34 p.m. to be exact), I was pulling a bowl of chili out of the refrigerator for nuking in the ol' microwave. (Said chili was provided by our friend Stacey Accetta who sent it home with us last night after our Super Bowl bash.) Anyway, I happened to glance at the t.v. and saw the caption, "Fox News LIVE - 6:34 p.m., Los Angeles" over Sean Hannity's shoulder. Sean was having a little friendly banter with LA's mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. Sean was in New York. Villaraigosa was here in California.

For some reason, seeing the NY/LA split-screen, and the "LIVE" caption sent me flashing back to my childhood. (Being an "old guy" blogger, you know that was a long time ago!) Anyway, I began recalling the many occasions when I'd be sitting with my dad in our Florida living room watching TV--network news and sports broadcasts, in particular .

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(Because my dad was born in 1905, I'll interrupt myself here with a little technological trivia about the 1st decade of the 20th century.)

• 1900 - The zeppelin was invented by Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin
• 1901 - A busy year: Gillette invented the double-edged safety razor blade; the first radio receiver received a radio transmission; Hubert Booth invented a compact vacuum cleaner (the earlier models required a horse! Don't ask!)
• 1902 - Willis Carrier invented the air conditioner
• 1903 - Another busy year: Edward Binney and Harold Smith co-invented crayons; the Wright Brothers invented the first gassed-motored/manned airplane; a woman named Mary Anderson invented the windshield wiper
• 1904 - Thomas Sullivan invented the teabag
• 1905 - Einstein published his theory of relativity (E = mc2 ) and . . . Mary Anderson received a patent for her windshield wiper!
• 1906 - William Kellogg invented the corn flake
• 1907 - "Bakelite, " the first synthetic plastic, was invented by Leo Baekland; also, color photography was invented by Auguste and Louis Lumiere
• 1908 - Ford's Model T was first sold
• 1909 - Instant coffee was invented by G. Washington
• 1910 - Thomas Edison demonstrated the first talking motion picture

A very productive slice of time, don't you think?
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Meanwhile, back to our humble living room in Kissimmee, Florida.

When Dad and I would watch any kind of news show in which an anchor in New York (Edward R. Murrow or Walter Cronkite, for example) would converse with a colleague in Washington or Los Angeles (or LONDON!), my dad would shake his head, purse his lips, and grunt an incredulous "ummh!" He never ceased to be filled with awe and wonder about the technology which made a coast-to-coast conversation between newscasters possible. (He was similarly impressed with the microwave oven and the fact that something cold (a bowl of Stacey's chili , for example) could become piping hot in just seconds/minutes!) I can't help chuckling to myself when I think about how amazed he'd be with today's technological developments. He died in 1992--just before the widespread explosion of the internet and cellular communications. He'd never be able to wrap his head around Bluetooth! But . . . he'd have loved HDTV!

Come to think of it, those are pretty amazing things! (Just a bit more complex than Mary Anderson's windshield wiper!)