On an evening, let’s say 25 years ago, I was casually watching TV. I’d like to think it was Masterpiece Theatre, but it was probably The Golden Girls—when my wife came into the room to announce that the time was at hand.
“My water just broke,” she said.
“Shouldn’t that be broken?” I replied. “Broke just doesn’t sound like proper grammar. Let me check on that.”
I rose to try and find my Oxford dictionary. That’s when my wife said several words that almost certainly were not in it. I got the message. In moments, we were in the car and on the way to the hospital.
Only 20 minutes after arriving, my wife delivered a beautiful baby girl. Few pizzas are delivered that fast, so I gave her a generous tip.
And now, with that very same daughter about to celebrate her 25th birthday in a few weeks, it is mind-boggling to think of how different the world is. Or should I say mind-googling?
In 1986, Amazon was only known as a river in South America. No one had heard of Super Mario Brothers or PlayStation or X-Box. A thing called Pong was as good as video-gaming could ever hope to be.
If you told someone you had a DVD, they’d have told you to see a doctor right away. And you should probably have your GPS looked at, too.
Twenty-five years ago, the only thing “flash drive” might have suggested were teenage boys mooning someone from a fast-moving Volkswagen.
I’ve imagined what it would be like to go back 25 years and have a conversation with myself:
OLD GUY PAT: “Wow, you really think those pants are cool-looking?”
YOUNG GUY PAT: “Polyester is very popular right now. By the way, your pants are riding kind of high, aren’t they?”
OLD GUY: “So you live in the year 1986. What’s going on?”
YOUNG GUY: “Well, Steve Jobs left Apple a couple of years
ago.”
OLD GUY: “He’ll be back.”
YOUNG GUY: “Are you nuts? He’s gone for good. Besides, he just bought a company called The Graphics Group.”
OLD GUY: “What if I told you they were about to change their name to Pixar and start making computer-animated feature films?”
YOUNG GUY: “I’d want to know what you’re smoking – because you are like to infinity and beyond, man.”
OLD GUY: “What’s popular on TV?”
YOUNG GUY: “Oh, you know. Night Court, Growing Pains, Matlock. Those shows will still be huge 25 years from now.”
OLD GUY: “Yea. On You Tube.”
YOUNG GUY: “On what?”
OLD GUY: “Never mind.”
A phone started ringing. Well, not ringing – beeping. The young guy reached over and picked up a cell phone the size of a shoe.
YOUNG GUY: “Hello? Yea. Look I can’t talk right now. It’s kind of weird, but I’m talking to myself 25 years from now. What? No, I’m not smoking anything. But I think HE is. Talk to you later.”
OLD GUY: “Someday, you’ll be able to text that caller from your cell phone.”
YOUNG GUY: “Right. Whatever that means.
OLD GUY: “I gotta go back to 2011. Is there any phrase that you predict people will still be saying 25 years from now?”
YOUNG GUY: “Yea. It’s ‘Be Kind, Please Rewind.’
OLD GUY: “See you in 25.”
Pat Cashman can be reached at pat@patcashman.com.
