Remember when people listened to their music on compact discs?

I do.

The compact disc, called a “CD” for convenience purposes, was actually an improvement from an older technology, called tapes.  The tapes were, well, a bunch of tape spooled inside a little plastic cartridge.  If you did not like what you were listening to, the tape had to be fastfowarded or rewinded to the desired location.  CDs offered something new: you could skip directly to the place, called a “track,” where the desired song resided.

I bought my first CDs with money I’d earned from painting my aunt’s deck furniture.  I bought the Use Your Illusion double-disc album by Guns ‘n’ Roses.  With giddiness I skipped right to the songs that had the most vulgar lyrics.  What liberty I felt at not being burdened with fastforwarding a tape.

The things was, you could also fast-forward the CD if you wanted to.   By holding in the button that was used to skip to the next track, I could play the music at double-time, and with the voices sounding like the Chipmunks.

The only catch to the CDs was the sensitive surface that held the music.  I would gaze at my reflection on the magical underside.  How did such a smooth surface hold music?  It must have all been with lasers.  Lasers explained everything.  With utmost deliberation and care I would take the CD out of its case and convey it to the top of the boom box, snap it in, and close the cover.  At once the CD would come to life, spinning and spinning, awaiting my command.  I was a hominid discovering fire.

Then one day in college my friend told me about an “mp3”.  He said it was the greatest.  He emailed me a link to an mp3  file – the file itself was too big to email.  I downloaded and listened and the world was never the same again.  But going from CDs to mp3’s was somehow just not the same as going from tapes to CDs.  I had become jaded by technological change.

And now even children have devices the size of a stamp which hold four million songs.  Those children probably don’t even know what a stamp is, either.

Remember when VCRs were the thing in home entertainment?

I do.

I was at a friend’s house the first time I ever saw a VCR (Video Cassette Recorder).  I did not know about the tape.  All I saw was that my friend could push one button on the remote and make the characters go backwards, and push another button to make them go forwards, into the future.  I thought that the device allowed you to see shows before they were aired.  I felt like a time traveler.

On the ride home from my friend’s that night I imagined that I had a “VCR” and a remote.  I imagined holding in the fast-forward button and watching shows that were years away.  I wondered why my friend had not done this.  Perhaps he was not that bright.

When I learned that the “fast-forward” was just through a tape of shows that already aired, I was disappointed.  How were you supposed to know ahead of time what you wanted to watch, and then set up the VCR to tape it?  We were not exactly the first family on the block to get a VCR.

But technology has a way of worming its way into our homes.  On the day – oh triumphant day – that we got a VCR, we went to the video store and rented Pee Wee’s Big Adventure.  I had seen it in the movie theater but wanted to see it again.  I think we rented that movie the second time we went to the video rental store, too.

The first thing I ever planned to tape was Raiders of the Lost Ark.  I arranged for my father to drive me to PC Richards for a blank VHS cassette.  On the way home he said to me, “Mark, what you about to do tonight is illegal.”  I wanted to tell him that he was wrong because everyone taped things off television.  But he would not have understood.

When I got home I unwrapped the tape, pushed it in, and pressed record.  What a luxury it was to be able to get up during the movie and go into the kitchen for something to eat and not worry about missing something because it was being taped.  For the first time in my life I was thankful for being born in the 20th Century.

The instant the movie ended I rewinded the tape.  And when I pressed play, I saw that all I had taped was snow.

Remember when cell phones did not exist?

I do.

Our home had two land-lines, but we called them “telephones,” or just “phones,” for short.  I would be in my room and the phone would ring.  Everyone could hear it.  My mom would pick up in the kitchen.

“Mark!” she would shout from downstairs.

“What?” I would shout from my room upstairs.

“So-and-so is on the phone.”

“What?”

“I SAID SO-AND-SO IS ON THE PHONE!”

“OH.  OKAY.”

“DO YOU WANT TO TAKE IT?”

“UM…SURE.”

I would go into the master bedroom, across the hall, where the other phone resided.  I would pick up the receiver.

“OKAY MOM.  I GOT IT.”

I would wait for the click and then begin speaking.  That was how calls were received.

Making a call was a little more complicated.  Time had to be reserved in advance.

“Mom, I have to make a telephone call.”

“Um..okay.  Just don’t stay on too long because I’m expecting a call from Grandma Sylvia.”

“Well, when is she supposed to call?”

“Oh, I don’t know.  But she won’t be pleased if she gets a busy signal.  Remember that time she got a busy signal?”

“I know, I know.  Okay, I’ll keep it short.  I promise.”

I would go into the master bedroom, away from the din of the television and dishwasher.  A minute into my phone conversation, I would hear someone pick up the phone.

“Hello?” said my mom.

“Mom!  I’m on the phone!”

“Oh…sorry.  I thought you were off.  Okay, g’bye.”

Talking on the phone to third persons was turned into a family activity.  Today, these steps have been truncated.  You just take your cell phone out of your pocket, or pick it up off your desk, and dial the number.  If it is a number you use a lot, you can dial with just a couple buttons instead of seven or ten.  Receiving a call is even easier.  You just pick up the phone and say, “Hello?”  Or if you want people to think you are cool, you say, “Hey.”

The cell phone is much more convenient.  But somehow I miss all the shouting.

Remember when email did not exist?

I do.

When my friends and I wanted to get together and do something we would call each other on the telephone.  Or they would just come over to my house and sit on my couch and say, “So what do you want to do?”

When my friends wanted to tell me something they would call me on the telephone.  Or they would tell me on the school bus on the way to school.  Sometimes they would tell me things on the way home from school.

When my friends wanted to show me something funny or disgusting or inappropriate they would have to show me while I was at their house, unless they happened to have whatever they wanted to show me in their schoolbag.  But bringing anything to school entailed risk.

When my friends wanted to invite to their birthday parties they would mail me an invitation.  Sometimes they would bring the invitation into school and hand them out.  I always felt awkward when they handed out invitations in school because not everyone got an invitation.

When strangers wanted to sell me something I did not need they would send me marketing materials to my mailbox.  They still do this.

When someone wanted to tell me a joke, they had to tell me in person.  They could tell right away if I thought it was funny.  They could also tell right away if I did not think it was funny.

And now all of these go through one channel called email.  Who says people don’t read anymore?

Remember a time when you did not hear speakers described as “surround sound”?

I do.

Speakers used to be just speakers.  Sometimes the speakers were built into a particular device, like a television or a boom box.  Other times speakers were connected as separate devices of their own.

And then one day I told someone about a stereo that I had gotten, and was asked, “Is it surround sound?”

“Is it what?” I asked.

“Surround sound.  You don’t know what surround sound is?  Surround sound is the best.”

I think I first heard the term in relation to movie theaters.  Certain movie theaters had this wonderful surround sound.  The term actually described the product well:  You felt as if you were surrounded by the sound.

But then it got to be so that every stereo or television had to have surround sound.  The phrase “with surround sound” was appended to the name of the main product so often that I began to think it was part of the product itself.  Big screen TVs…with surround sound, I heard on commercials.

After a while friends stopped coming over to watch television at my house.  They always had a polite excuse – the dog got sick, the toilet had to be plunged – but I knew the truth.  They did not want to come over because I did not have surround sound.

I never understood what was so great about surround sound.  So the sound surrounds you.  After a minute you get totally used to it and the sound is no different than it was before.  But when people get used to something, there’s no going back.  The only sound is surround sound.