Hearkening Back to 1979

Remember when you didn’t have minute-to-minute access to the Internet, news and weather? I can. Can you imagine a time when you didn’t have this kind of access to information? I can’t.

Today’s weather across the nation had me thinking back to 1979 when I was a kid growing up in the northern suburbs of Chicago. Chicagoans have always prided themselves on their toughness. Nothing could stand in our way.

As a kid in school, there were nights you’d lie awake all giddy that school may be closed. You’d wake up early and listened to the radio, waiting for your school’s name to be called. You’d hear all about the private schools that were closed. "Ours had to be on the list coming up." Now the public schools… city schools around us were closed. "Yes, today would be the day!" But alas, today wouldn’t be the day. It was just another day of bundling up and heading to school.

It was depressing for me. My schools never closed. Not once! Even with 18-inches of snow on the ground, the schools remained open. In 1979, the snows were so bad that it took the buses more than an hour to go a mere three-miles. Rather than sit on a bus we, as a group, sucked it up and walked the distance—most times beating the bus. We were Chicagoans. We were tough. Or, was it that we didn’t know any better and had a lack of information?

Think of how much our lives have changed in three-plus decades. We have become dependent on not just cell phones, but smart phones. Weather and news are available 24-hours a day on cable/satellite TV, on the radio, over the Internet and on your smart phone. Back in 1979, some, if not most, of these "conveniences" weren’t available.

Is there too much access to information these days? How has it improved our lives? I think it has taken away some of our toughness.