Picturing Lunch

IN 1975, WHEN I WAS TWENTY, I predicted that eventually the average American household would come complete with a flat screen built into the wall, living room, bedroom, or both, and that the screen would be comprehenisve in its functions. It would serve at once as a television, a video telephone, and a computer; choose your function, flip your switch. The person to whom I confided this was a worse prognosticator than I. His prediction was that fifty years in the future, nobody would much remember "The Beatles"; maybe only a handful of songs, but that's about it. He allowed as to how the beautiful song "Yesterday" might be remembered, but that most of their opus would have been relegated to the trash bin. He still has three years left for the fab four to descend into obscurity, but time is running out. The upshot is, my friend was dead, dog dumb wrong. I thought he would be wrong, even as he made this ridiculous prediction in 1975. Didn't he realize that good music, good art of any sort, endures? Seemingly not. I think I did better than he. True, flatscreens tend to not be built into walls; that would make upgrading a hassle; that I hadn't thought of. Instead, we hang them on walls temporarily, until our next upgrade. And then too, notwithstanding video conferencing and all, telephones tend to be located in people's pockets, not on their walls. The demand for telephonic portability I couldn't conceive of, but then, neither could anybody else. I have yet to unearth any science fiction or science prediction from the fifties, sixties, or seventies in which the characters used cell phones: they fly around the galaxy at warp speed, traveling through time and what not, but, other than Kirk - Spock Star Trek, they all had to go running to find a telephone. And, in fact, the gentleman who is credited for having "invented" the cell phone attested that he got the idea from, you guesed it, watching Star Trek. But the general idea, that television would merge with computers, I got right. Problem is, in 1975 I had no idea exactly what computers would vbe used for, other than performing mathematical calculations, which they were already doing anyway, being called "calculators". But, again, nobody else had any real idea in 1975 what computers would be used for in two thousand and twenty two either. I know of no one who uses a laptop or a cell phone to do math. I do recall that my mother gave me a calculator for Christmas along about 1975, when I was in college, she apparently thinking I might need one in my future career in science - but she gave it to me at about the same time that I switched my major - to history. Social media? Who woulda thunk it? I can readily attest that in 1975 I had no idea that forty seven years hence your average American would be taking pictures of his or her lunch, posting it on Facebook, and reading posts in resposne to the photo, that we would call photographs "pics", nor that every response would be the same: "yummy". I chose, and choose, not to take picutes of anything and post them on Facebook. NObody seems to mind. People show pictures of their lunch, but never pictures of their hosues, for fear of paint guns, or something worse. I know someone on Facebook who makes damned sure that we all see her swimming pool, her flower garden, and her lunch and cocktails; but never, never, her house. Mayvbe she's smart, and wants to avoid having two billion Facebook users show up at her lovely abode at the same time. Or maybe she pitches a tent next to the pool, while having lunch. All I know is; you'll never catch me photographing my lunch with a smart phone, and showing it to the world, or at least my "Facebook Friends" list. My facebook skills may be a bit spartan, and my lunches are nothing to photograph or write home about, but; at least I have the good sense to ask myself: "who gives a damn"?, and, to arrive at the correct answer.