A Lifetime of Technological Change

​While upgrading internet access to my home, it was necessary to move aside some books and an old radio from their usual spot so the technician could do his work. I was struck by the juxtaposition of my modern laptop with the radio, a 1951 General Electric model.
The radio came down to me from some in-laws, and paired with the computer, spanned seventy years of technological change. It operates with “vacuum tube” units, a terminology those of a certain age will recall. It still works! I turn it on about once a year to make sure.
I wonder what things a previous generation heard on this radio. World War Two was over by 1951, but the Korean War was not. Perhaps they listened to information about the 1952 presidential election or even heard Dwight D. Isenhower’s inauguration speech.
Television became increasingly available toward the end of the 1950s, but perhaps they listened to the Nixon-Kennedy debates on the radio. My own family did not get a television until about 1956. We could tune in to three channels.
The books I moved were also noteworthy. I have a first edition, first printing of Atlas Shrugged (1957) and a 1936 copy of Gone With the Wind. Those two books border my favorite modern novel, Infinite Jest, by David Foster Wallace (1996).
I value the modern technology. It makes life easier. I cherish the old. It brings me joy.