2006 Soap Box Archives

Technology 04/17/06

Being born in 1936 I have seen the advent of some absolutely incredibly awesome technology.

When I was a kid the telephones were either rotary dial or in some of the smaller towns and rural locations a box on the wall with a crank on the side that alerted the operator that you wanted to make a call, then you’d give her the number and she’d connect you.

The first phone number I ever memorized belonged to my grandparents in Wilmington North Carolina. It was 6094. Just those four numbers, no area code, no prefix.

Now, to be able to carry a phone around in my pocket is almost more than I can comprehend.

When I was overseas recently, the ladies at the office got me a phone that they told me should work just about anywhere I went, and let me tell you that dialing a direct call from Uzbekistan is pretty wild.

I never saw a picture on a television set until I was about 15 years old. Of course TV was in existence long before then but
only in the large urban areas and it would be many years before it made it’s way to rural North Carolina. I say that just to try to clue you in on how amazed I am that in this day and age I can ride down the highway in my bus and watch television, thanks to a football sized contraption called a roaming dish, which turns and stays honed in on the satellite as you’re riding down the road.

The first computers I ever heard about were about the size of a small family home and the people who operated them were among the smartest in the world. Now, even a hick like me can send a computer message around the world instantly, I mean it’s mind boggling.

Technology in medicine has made strides in the last fifty years that the people of a hundred years ago could only dream about. When I was a kid being told that you had a cancer was almost tantamount to a death sentence, but as we all know, thank God, many cancers are not only treatable but also curable.

Artificial knees and hips and liver, kidney and heart transplants are
commonplace these days, but were unheard of just a few short decades ago.

Contact lenses, laser surgery, dental implants and wonder drugs have all come into being in the relatively distant past. Supersonic jets, space travel, penicillin, fax machines, atomic energy and even radial tires have come along during my lifetime and it almost makes my head spin.

I can’t imagine what will come along in the near future but you know that it’s going to be something that those of us who remember rotary telephones can only scratch our heads at.

Pray for our troops.

What do you think?

God Bless America

Charlie Daniels

 

©Copyright The Charlie Daniels Band