I often wonder how people in my parents generation managed before the internet. I remember my mother in the school office running copies of the newsletter she typed with ditto paper. Do you remember the mimeograph? You had to crank it by hand…and everything had to be on paper. Class directories, schedules, everything. Want the news? Wait until it comes on TV at 6:30 and if you miss it, tough shit. No CNN.com for instant gratification. Want to find a picture that resembles that bump on your chest to figure out if it’s an ingrown hair or leprosy? No-can-do. No WebMD. How do you research a company with whom you were going to interview? Where do you go to find recipes that don’t include potatoes as an ingredient? How long would it take to get directions or find a phone number? Who do you ask when you want to find good places to hike in the area or what others thought of the new restaurant down the street? How did you find a date or meet people?

These were the days of trial by fire. Of the mimeograph. Of blue fingers and child labor (that would be me cranking that stupid machine). These were the days when we spoke to our neighbors and held block parties. Before cable television and call waiting. This was a time when we didn’t know what we were missing. When we couldn’t possibly fathom the vastness and the interconnectedness.

Hell, I remember the family sitting around the tape recorder, each of the four of us kids taking our turn recording for family in California the song we learned in class that week or detailing how we did on our math test or what role we won in the school play. We’d snail-mail this tape to the relatives and a few weeks later we’d get one in return.

In recent months, several individuals I knew in my youth have managed to track me down via the wonders of cyberspace. How could that possibly have happened 20 years ago? I’ve moved several times and changed my name. A “WANTED” poster with pictures of me from 1989 would hardly have yielded results.

How times have changed.

That said…thanks to Tim Berners-Lee, for making it possible to reconnect with my past. For making it possible for me to record the mostly boring details of my life and throw them out here for consumption or…not. For freedom and endless possibilities. For helping humanity attempt to understand infinity.