MMeM, Vol. 14 Issue 4 – Clockwise
Millennials, they are punch lines for us olds these days aren’t they? We just can’t understand how things we take for granted are so foreign to them. On the other hand, they feel the same way about us for many of the new technology some of us struggle with today. Look, getting old is hard. It’s a constant series of gut-checking adjustments and reminders that nostalgia and history are dead or dying. As olds, we just have to learn to LET IT ALL GO. It’s gone, it’s over. Whatever was, isn’t anymore.
Still, some of the things from the past are so hard to accept as extinct. Take analog clocks for example. Not only did we all grow up staring at analog clocks in schools for 18 years, longing for the hour of 3pm and later, but we had wrist watches, and our grandparents had coo-coo clocks with birds that would pop out when the two hands did things! We learned how to tell time with analog clocks and say things like, “It’s ten past three” or “It’s twenty to eleven”. There was “a quarter after one” and “half past nine”, it was all so grown up!
Well, there is talk of schools in the UK and some states in the U.S. DOING AWAY WITH ANALOG CLOCKS because “students are struggling to read them“. Ugh. Really?
So, just think of all the things you do in life where you say to someone, “Turn it counter-clockwise”. Yeah, prepare for blank stares. Sorry, prepare for MORE blank stares.
The very near future: