Nineteen for me. Living in a time of rapid technological change is a wild ride.
How Many?
- Donald R. McClarey
Donald R. McClarey
Cradle Catholic. Active in the pro-life movement since 1973. Father of three, one in Heaven, and happily married for 43 years. Small town lawyer and amateur historian. Former president of the board of directors of the local crisis pregnancy center for a decade.
I have physically performed the action of 19 of these at least once in my life. The only one I don’t recall doing is recording the radio to cassette mostly because I rarely ever listened to the radio, (I did plenty of cassette to cassette transfers) but I did record live TV to VHS which seems equivalent, so I’m giving myself an extra half point, with a side order of copyright infringement liability.
As far as the typewriter, it was more of a novelty thing, and I think the one or two faxes I sent were of college transcripts. I somewhat randomly listened to vinyls a lot; when I was a preteen (back way before I became catholic), the Wesleyan church my family attended had this vinyl player in this room my friends and I used to hang out in. It had, for whatever reason, one of Stryper’s albums (a Christian metal band) on vinyl (In God We Trust, if I remember correctly), and we listened to that while playing Tecmo Super Bowl on NES.
20 for me, but then I’m 95.92 years old…didn’t do much of the music stuff, but enough to qualify
At 44 years old, I have done all 20. I tell my students that one of my quirks of my little micro generation is we are the “swing” era between analog and digital while in school.
I used a typewriter in elementary school while learning the computer and I made calls on my grandma’s loud as the devil white rotary Western Electric phone. Media was available in all the forms still – vinyl and cassette, VHS, LaserDisc (remember those?). Took photography class in a dark room. Fun time. I miss it…
Sometimes, anyway.
I have physically performed the action of 19 of these at least once in my life. The only one I don’t recall doing is recording the radio to cassette
That is the one I have not done.
19 of 20. Same one not done.
20/20
-recorded on radio to cassette through the air and hardwired -which is better.
Working as an engineer I take all the technological changes in stride, all natural evolutions.
All 20. The list could be longer.
21. Collected green or yellow stamps at the grocery store.
22. Stood in line to buy a physical ticket to a concert or movie.
23. Have or watch a B&W TV.
24. Make a collect call.
25. Have no AC.
I got a perfect 20. Do I win a prize?
My alma mater had a campus radio station that broadcast a weekly 3-hour blues program “Blue Monday” for almost thirty years. The host, Bill Monroe, had an encyclopedic knowledge and a knack for the apt segue. I treasure the handful of cassettes I recorded of that show.
JFK, I still had a perfect score until I got to your #25. No AC? Are you mad? I live in Texas!
Wait, back in my student days I drove an old F-150 pickup truck that had heat but no AC. Does that count?
20 for sure! We used to call in the station and wait hours w our fingers hovering over the record button 😂
Clinton, we got AC around 1980-82. The AC on my previous car broke down so I drove it over 8 years without.
20/20 and 25/25. Growing up in San Diego, we never had AC, as it wasn’t needed (would have been nice during a Santa Anna, but they’re over in a couple of days).
It was an easier, more human, way of life because you actually spoke with people and didn’t have any computer/smart phone to distract you. I remember that the Walkman was the first device that allowed people in public to ignore others and create a private world for themselves. That was not a positive development.
don’t blink… here comes Quantum repeater communications.
Every one of them.
Fifteen for me. I’ve entered a Blockbuster, but the only videos I’ve ever rented were from a small town stand-alone store. No one in my family owned a Walkman. Never attempted to record a song playing on the radio. My brother once gave my mother a boombox; it was kept in the basement laundry room. There were several people in my office ca. 1992 whose work made use of a modem; not me.
16
Granted, the typewriter was at that point just a novelty i had the chance to play with.
I know I’ve done everything on the list except use a Walkman, and that was only because I never bought one. I used to record songs off the radio to cassette all the time as a teen/young adult. We still have some vintage manual typewriters kicking around the house.
18 for me. I never had a Walkman or a boombox.
25 of 25
And I’m under 60.
Ah, the running across the room to press “record” on that next great tune.
A couple of months ago, I was at a used bookstore which also had records, cd’s, comic books, videos, and DVD’s. They had a section of rentable video cassettes.
How many? All I believe. And most still. For instance, I will use GPS in a pinch, but I prefer a paper map with me if I can find them, given the propensity for GPS to get me from my house to the corner grocery store by way of Saskatchewan.
25 of 25. Technically, I do have A/C, but SDG&E are bleeding me dry already, so it stands idle. Same with the heater. Burn eucalyptus deadwood in the fireplace and have one quartz heater in the bedroom for really cold nights, since we currently hVe no dog.. It’s one of the advantages on living in the boonies.
And I still have my Mom’s oldvSmith-Corona portable she used in college. Need to take it in for a good cleaning, but it works!
BTW, “typed up a mimeo for copying or made a thermofax”
SouthCoast, I’ve used a mimeograph machine or two in my day. I’m sure nobody would forget the scent of drying mimeograph paper.
I remember ages ago when theologian Rosemary Radford Ruether (one of the founders of “Ecofeminist Theology” and a board member of the pro-abortion group “Catholics for Choice”) was asked in an interview why she claimed to remain a Catholic when she so clearly despised the Church; she replied “because that’s where the mimeograph machines are”. I’ll always remember that response of hers— intellectual honesty like that is so rare among her sort of “Catholic” theologians parasitizing the Church.
I’ve watched someone use a mimeograph, but never used one myself. I did once use a Dittomaster machine. As a kid, the only Xerox machines I ever saw were at the public library and at the post office. My father bought some sort of dictabelt machine for his home office ca. 1968, but I don’t think he ever used it. My mother was learning shorthand for work at the time she was married in 1952. We had her old textbook in the house for decades.
It’s 20 for me, but we don’t have “Blockbuster” over here, but we do – or did – have video hiring stores. So on the assumption that I can substitute, I’ll claim the 20.
But of course, I am a ‘flatus vetus’. 🙂