"Doo-da-doots" and "Pa-dings"

My house is beginning to sound more and more like an arcade! I have seen many innovations over the course of my lifetime. I can remember the first television my dad bought back in the 1950's. It was a second hand RCA, made of what looked like a thousand tubes stuck in a metal frame. The cover had been removed during the repair and never put back, so, it sat there on the table, tubes exposed and glowing as the electricity coursed through it. What a marvelous invention it was!

Radios were large and bulky. At first they were limited to their location in the house by the length of their cord. Then one day I got a transistor radio! It was nice! Not much bigger than a matchbox, it had a telescopic antenna and it would just fit in your shirt pocket..wow..I thought I was “up town”!

Along and around 1962, we got a telephone. Daddy had been trying to get one put in for a couple years, but, had been told that the party line was full. Finally “Ma Bell” expanded its service from 4-party lines to 8-party lines and we got the phone. Of course, we were not allowed to call anyone (except for emergencies), but we could answer if no adult was there. Everyone on our party line had an assigned ring so that we would know when to answer. Ours was two short rings. The phone was wonderful but had its drawbacks. The older ladies on the party line had to talk everyday at a certain time. There was no need to try to use the phone during that time of the day. Also, on a party line, your ring would sound in every household on the line, so, reckon there was some eavesdropping?

In college I became acquainted with computers. Mind you, they were nothing like what we have today. One computer took up a whole room and to make it do anything, you had to write programs on keypunch cards and feed them into the machine. One period or comma out of place and the whole thing was ruined. About this time, calculators began to appear. I often thought how much easier my studies would have been had I owned a calculator!

Now we all own iphones, ipads, laptops, and desktop pc's that work with the click of the keypad. Ringtones and notification sounds ring out all through the day and night. My wife will say “You got a doo-da-doot!” or I'll say to her, “You got a pa-ding!” and we both drop what we are doing and check our machines. I can tell who is calling by what ringtone sounds on my phone.Yep..."arcade-ish" for sure! In case there is a reader who does not yet know their meanings, "doo-da-doot" is a Facebook notification and "pa-ding" is an instant messenger notification.

I know technology is good, but it never stops! New things appear every day and many people become obsessed with purchasing new stuff. Until it gets so outdated that it will no longer work, I think I probably have all I need...Uh oh...gotta go! I think I got a “pa-ding”!! *grin*