I managed to live in the best of both worlds

Life has changed dramatically since I was a boy, so dramatically I sometimes must remind myself I’m the same person who got up to change the TV channel, then tune the correct color balance. The world of my childhood was much different than today, in some ways better but in many ways not.

When I was a boy, American cars ruled the road – not just Chevys, Fords and Chryslers, but Nashes, Ramblers and other makes from companies that no longer exist. “Foreign” cars consisted of Volkswagen Bugs, MGs and the occasional Triumph. There were no Japanese cars. Also, people tend to think of extended cab pickup trucks as a recent development, but Dodge made extended cabs back in the ’60s for the U.S. Air Force. And Ford produced a large van called the Falcon (not the car) that rivaled anything built by Chrysler these days.

TV sets were giant boxes that sat in the corner of the living room. They were furniture, not cute little devices that could be put anywhere, and they were filled with tubes that often burned out. When a tube burned out you had to take off the back of the TV, find the offending tube, take it to a hardware store and plug it in to a machine called a tube tester. Once the tube tester confirmed it had burned out, you bought a new tube and plugged it into the TV. If you were lucky, the TV would start working. If not, you had to find the other tube that burned out.

There were no remotes. You had to get up, cross the living room and manually switch the channel with a knob. Sometimes the contacts on the knob would wear out and the TV wouldn’t tune the channel. If you had a color TV – and we didn’t get one until 1966 – you had to manually adjust the color between each network, which at the time consisted of ABC, NBC and CBS. ABC tended to produce “hot” colors, lots of reds and oranges. CBS was in the middle and NBC produced “cold” colors, bland flesh tones that always needed warming up. My sister Sandie was the champion of color balancing the picture.

Telephones were hunks of metal sitting on their own table in a strategic location. Later, we graduated to Bakelite phones mounted on the wall. Rich people had extensions in their bedrooms. It was not unusual to share a “party line” with other houses in your neighborhood. You would pick up the phone and hear other people talking. Sometimes, you had to tell them to get off the phone so you could use it.

We didn’t have icemakers. We had ice cube trays – and not the bendable plastic trays where the ice cubes pop out. These were metal contraptions with a lift arm that bent the dividers, creating fractures in the ice. You dumped the cubes into the bucket and filled the tray with water and put it back in the freezer. It was a rule the last person to use all the ice was responsible for filling the trays. This produced violent arguments about which miscreant hadn’t filled the trays.

Only the better-off families could afford a dishwasher. We washed and dried dishes by hand. Again, whose turn it was to wash dishes became a source of friction in the household.

There were no video games but plenty of board games – Monolopy, Life, Yahtzee, CandyLand, and card games.

Microwave ovens came out in 1966 and we thought they were magical. Still, we wondered if they weren’t irradiating our food. In the early ’80s, cordless phones arrived. Again, we thought they were magical. I used to brag about being able to talk on the phone and do housework at the same time. We got cable TV in the mid-’60s and it was a gift from the rabbit-eared god – until the cable went out. I remember waiting all summer for a critical scene in the afternoon soap opera “Dark Shadows,” only to have the darned TV cable crap out just before it happened. VCRs and 8-track tapes came out in the late ’70s and early ’80s. You could buy a blank VCR tape for $20, while a pre-recorded movie cost between $80 and $90. Our first home computer was a “Trash 80” that you hooked up to your TV so you could have a “monitor.” Digital calculators emerged in the early ’70s but cost anywhere from $50 to over $200. I worked for Texas Instruments building calculators in the summer of ’74 – one of the best jobs I’ve ever had.

I got my first home computer in 1991, an IBM PS1, and you could access AOL or another online “community” whose name I’ve forgotten. Problem was internet usage cost by the minute, so going online was a costly affair. I sent my first e-mail in 1990 and was amazed when I got a response. It was to a friend who worked at Eglin Air Force Base. I thought it was the stuff of science fiction. In 1995 I purchased my first cellphone, a Motorola flip phone. The thing barely worked because the network of cellphone towers didn’t exist.

And that’s the way it went. Eventually ATM cards, satellite TV, smart phones, terrabyte hard drives, fuel injection and HDTV replaced the world I once knew. I confess it’s been a struggle trying to keep up with everything. Bulletin boards, Usenet and Gopher Space have been supplanted by Facebook and other social media networks. Frozen food tastes as good or better than fresh, despite my beloved “TV dinners” of Salisbury steak, peas and carrots, and mashed potatoes and gravy. On twitter I communicate directly with scientists, whereas in the past I would’ve mailed a typewritten letter and hoped for a response.

The new world has better technology. What I liked about the old was its innocence and focus.

But I feel lucky to have lived in both.

About the author:

Del Stone Jr. is a professional fiction writer. He is known primarily for his work in the contemporary dark fiction field, but has also published science fiction and contemporary fantasy. Stone’s stories, poetry and scripts have appeared in publications such as Amazing Stories, Eldritch Tales, and Bantam-Spectra’s Full Spectrum. His short fiction has been published in The Year’s Best Horror Stories XXII; Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine; the Pocket Books anthology More Phobias; the Barnes & Noble anthologies 100 Wicked Little Witch Stories, Horrors! 365 Scary Stories, and 100 Astounding Little Alien Stories; the HWA anthology Psychos; and other short fiction venues, like Blood Muse, Live Without a Net, Zombiesque and Sex Macabre. Stone’s comic book debut was in the Clive Barker series of books, Hellraiser, published by Marvel/Epic and reprinted in The Best of Hellraiser anthology. He has also published stories in Penthouse Comix, and worked with artist Dave Dorman on many projects, including the illustrated novella “Roadkill,” a short story for the Andrew Vachss anthology Underground from Dark Horse, an ashcan titled “December” for Hero Illustrated, and several of Dorman’s Wasted Lands novellas and comics, such as Rail from Image and “The Uninvited.” Stone’s novel, Dead Heat, won the 1996 International Horror Guild’s award for best first novel and was a runner-up for the Bram Stoker Award. Stone has also been a finalist for the IHG award for short fiction, the British Fantasy Award for best novella, and a semifinalist for the Nebula and Writers of the Future awards. His stories have appeared in anthologies that have won the Bram Stoker Award and the World Fantasy Award. Two of his works were optioned for film, the novella “Black Tide” and short story “Crisis Line.”

Stone recently retired after a 41-year career in journalism. He won numerous awards for his work, and in 1986 was named Florida’s best columnist in his circulation division by the Florida Society of Newspaper Editors. In 2001 he received an honorable mention from the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association for his essay “When Freedom of Speech Ends” and in 2003 he was voted Best of the Best in the category of columnists by Emerald Coast Magazine. He participated in book signings and awareness campaigns, and was a guest on local television and radio programs.

As an addendum, Stone is single, kills tomatoes and morning glories with ruthless efficiency, once tied the stem of a cocktail cherry in a knot with his tongue, and carries a permanent scar on his chest after having been shot with a paintball gun. He’s in his 60s as of this writing but doesn’t look a day over 94.

Contact Del at [email protected]. He is also on Facebook, twitter, Pinterest, tumblr, TikTok, and Instagram. Visit his website at delstonejr.com .