As I get older I have time to think about things like evolution.  Not so much the Darwin evolution of one cell organism crawling out of the sea and become the mess we call Man, but the evolution of the everyday things that affect our lives.

The first computer I worked with was housed in a building of warehouse dimensions.  The next one was an IBM sys 32, which was the size of an executive desk with a screen the size of a lady’s compact mirror.  It used green-bar paper and spat it out in voluminous amounts.  You had to learn a special language to utilize its capabilities.  The next model up was a Sys 38, much larger in every way but no more efficient in any way but speed.  My how things have changed in the last 30 + years.  I sit here this morning working on a computer the size of a compositon tablet that has capabilities that I would have never dreamed existed.  Dorothy and I collectively have 8 computers of various types, including smart phones, digital readers, I have 2 Kendles, just in case I get somewhere that I need to read 2 books at one time, and we would have a 9th If I could get her to switch from her flip phone to a Iphone.  I shudder to think how our life would be if we were without any of these devices.  We would not be able to find anything while on trips without D’s Ipad giving us maps and directions by voice.  The voice on these devices is about as annoying as it could possibly be.  I said some derogatory things about “SIRI” one day and she told me she didnt like to hear stuff like that.  I have not turned on that feature on my phone since that day.  Just think for a moment about how far-fetched we thought Dick Tracy’s wrist phone set-up was when we first saw it in the funnys.  Ha, his wrist phone wouldnt be worth squat today.  We can sit down at the keyboard and go anywhere, find anyone, and talk face to face with people from any land.  We often chat with our German daughters via the Skype program, and it is for free.  When they first came to stay with us a call home for them was about $ 10.00 per minute.

Our cars have evolved and then unevolved.  Many of us had cars in our youth that had 6 cylinder, flathead motors.  Then the rage was the muscle car, with engines so big that they were underutilized because of the limits on speed on the hwys.  In the last few years, autos have gone back to smaller engines, but ones that are more efficient and sometimes more powerful than the ones we thought of as dragsters.  What a change.

Almost every phase of life has changed but sometimes not for the better.  Could a Sonic Hamburger joint ever be better than an Al’s Burger Bar?  I think not.  I can sit her now and taste his enchiladas.  That was always a late night snack, after your date, because of the onions on the dish.  His rolled tacos are remembered as the best ever eaten.  I cannot compute the number of “Sissy Burgers”  I ate out of his kitchen.  Sissy burgers was what you ate before the date cause no onions and no pickles allowed for closer contact with the lovely damsel in the front seat of your auto.  Could a skating car-hop of a prepubescent age be better that the Ladies who worked for Al.  No.  In your formative years you need someone to hold you in check.  You need someone who you fear will drag you out of your car and beat you into submission should you get too big for your britches.  Al had those type ladies as car-hops.  Treasures, one and all.

So, I guess we think things have gotten better thru the evolution of man.  But have they?  Can you still let your children, or grands in most of our cases, leave the house at night without worrying that they will be harmed in some way.  Do we know that a village of people are helping us raise our offspring?  Half the village is out to harm them in some way.  Can they go to Al’s for a cherry coke and not end up buying a gram of coke?  Hopefully they know the difference.  Some dont.  I have watched all the television shows on the Travel channel, NationalGeo and do believe that things have adapted due to their surroundings.  I just dont want them evolvng in the wrong way.  I want things simplier.  However, I dont mind the new cup cake place that has opened in Corpus that serves cupcakes in flavors such as pecan pie, maple bacon.  Those are changes that this old codger can get in step with.  I do remember when a cup cake came in either chocolate or vanilla.  What a change.

Chuy the unchanged