We often hear our parents or grandparents tell us how things were done in their day, and we marvel at how much has changed in such a relatively short time.
Imagine walking through a foot of snow to use the outhouse when nature called. Or riding a horse into town because that was your only transportation. Or gathering around a wood stove in the middle of the house because that was the heat source. I remember my mother telling stories like these. At the time, they seemed ancient. Looking back, they really weren’t that long ago. It makes me wonder what stories we will tell future generations about the things we do today.
How about telling time on a standard wall clock? You know — the big hand, the little hand and the frantic moment when you are trying to determine whether you are 10 minutes early or 50 minutes late. I recently saw a post about a student who was asked by a teacher to draw a clock showing 10 minutes after 11. The student drew a digital clock reading “11:10.” Sigh.
Then there is money. I was paying cash at a sandwich shop the other day, and my change was automatically deposited into a little metal bowl attached to the register. I asked the clerk how many customers still pay with cash. He guessed about 20%. The latest Federal Reserve data show cash accounted for about 16% of consumer payments in 2023, down from 31% in 2016. Cards now dominate the payment landscape.
I vividly recall learning how to count change in school. One has to wonder whether that is still taught — and whether it needs to be. I remember taking my then-4-year-old daughter Samantha to a store when she wanted to buy something with her own money. She did not know the difference between a dime and a dollar, so she kept pulling coins from her little purse and putting them up on the counter until the clerk told her she had enough. I smiled. Samantha was beaming. She had bought something with her own money, and that was all that mattered.
Then there are gasoline-powered vehicles. Many of us are reluctant to give up the internal-combustion engine, but the transition to electric vehicles is real. In 2025, electric vehicles accounted for about 10% of U.S. car sales, according to the International Energy Agency. Will the gasoline engine eventually become as outdated as the horse and buggy? Maybe. I suspect Grandpa would have laughed at the idea of a horse being replaced by a machine. And someday, our grandchildren may laugh at us for driving vehicles that required us to stop, insert a nozzle and pump liquid fuel into them. Just as we laugh at the outhouse. Progress has a funny way of making yesterday’s normal look downright ridiculous.
Someday, somebody will probably look back at us and wonder how we ever survived with a wall clock that needed batteries, a credit card that had to be swiped, and a car that ran on gasoline. I just hope they remember that we were darn good at making change.
Have a fantastic Friday, and thanks for reading.
Shane Goodman
Editor and Publisher
Times Vedette digital newsletter
shane@gctimesnews.com
641-332-2707