Nike has “Just Do It”. De Beers has “A diamond is forever”. Allstate tells you “You’re in good hands”. When I was a kid, the slogan my mother constantly used in reference to me was, “Be patient and slow down!”
I came of age at a time when there were more shows on television in black and white than in color. There were no cell phones. There weren’t even push-button phones, all were rotary dial. The first “cell phone” was a bag phone that weighed two pounds, cost almost $4000 and came out the year I got married. Microwaves didn’t exist and when they did, most folks thought they were cancer causing. By the way, that’s what my mother believed about color televisions too, at least until I got one to take to college and my folks enjoyed watching my TV in living color albeit from the doorway of next room.
If a phone were busy, you didn’t leave a message – no answering machines and no call waiting – you hung up and tried again later. If you were going to have dinner, it was made in the oven. If you were going to a fast-food place, you ate inside. There was no such thing as a drive-thru. When I was a kid McDonald’s advertised a hamburger, fries and a Coke with change back from your dollar – change back from a SINGLE dollar! Those were the days my friend, I thought they’d never end…
Computers were items that the Pentagon had, and they took up an entire room from floor to ceiling. Personal computers weren’t even available until after I graduated from college. Research meant actually reading books and looking things up in the card catalogue and the Reader’s Guide to Periodical Literature (get your grandparent or elderly neighbor to explain it to you). Now you have more computing power in your pocket in the form of your cell phone than all the computers combined that NASA had to put Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin on the moon back in 1969, which I watched on television by the way – black and white of course.
Customer service meant getting in your car and going to a store’s physical location, then waiting in line to talk to a real person face-to-face. “Online” shopping in those prehistoric days of my childhood consisted of choosing something from a paper catalogue, putting the order form document and a personal check in the “snail mail” and waiting for the mail carrier to bring you the package in a month to six weeks. In the 1880’s when people out here in the West ordered shoes from Sears and Roebuck catalogue, the shoes were mailed one at a time in separate packages because of bulk mail restrictions.
Credit cards weren’t ubiquitous like they are these days. There were some charge cards, not credit cards, which meant the entire balance was due each and every month. For example, American Express was a charge card, not a credit card, for much of its history. There were a few “store cards” that were good at that particular store only. When MasterCard and Visa first came out, they were for the “rich” who they knew were good for it. Middle class and poor people remained cash only customers at stores. No debit cards, cash and personal checks were the currency of commerce in those days.
There was no Door Dash or other delivery services. Some pizza places delivered, but most did not, and no other type of restaurant/food was deliverable. No prepackaged sandwiches, like those available in gas stations and convenience stores today. No microwavable food either. No individual meals or portions in the grocery store, everything was “family size”. Nearly every restaurant then was a “sit down” restaurant including burger places.
Tickets to concerts and events were only available at the box office. It wasn’t unusual for die-hard fans to camp out the day or a couple of days before tickets were offered for sale to get a seat. The only thing even comparable today is the frenzy over the Taylor Swift concert tour.
When you answered the phone, no one asked you where you were. You were tethered to the wall in your home or office. It was clear where you were. Later, long phone cords were available to get you to another part of the room but when I was a kid all of my romantic dealings were done on a black, rotary dial phone in a little alcove off of, but entirely within ear shot of the kitchen. My parents knew EVERYTHING. Rejection, and there was a lot of that for me as a teenager, was doubly humiliating because I had an audience at home.
Having had those various experiences as a youth, it now amazes me the rage that I observe in the drive-thru line when service isn’t “fast enough”. When I taught at Mitchell High School, I saw teachers furious at the slowness of the microwave – granted it was ancient, there was a line to use it and lunch was really only eighteen minutes long, but even so.
I remember the days of dial up internet service. Those were the times when a person had a paperback book with them at the computer so you could read a chapter or two as the pages off the internet were loading onto the computer screen. The anger and vitriol that people express over sluggish internet nowadays amuses me.
For much of my younger driving period the speed limit was 55 mph and boy did motorist chafe at that. Today 80 mph isn’t fast enough, judging from the vehicles that pass me on the interstate.
I am not a patient person, never have been. However, having had the upbringing that I had at the time that I had it makes me look more like Job from the Bible than the young people that surrounded me at the high school and those I interact with today.
Remember, take a breath, be patient, slow down and life will be less stressful and more bearable both for you and the people around you. I’ve got to go now; the microwave is beeping at me…