Time, Time, Time

At left, copyright free image of HMS Ajax commissioned in 1913. She was broken up in 1926.

I am caught occasionally in the effects of the passage of time. I think it moves so quickly.

Then, perspective.

When I think from 2000 until today 2015, The change is somehow less than I would have expected.

Where are cars of tomorrow we were promise when I was a child? Infiniti used this theme as the basis of an advertising program not long after 2000, also.

My phone can do more today than in 2000 though I personally don't use it for that purpose. (Bit of a telephone Luddite. Fully function top-end smartphone which, because of my work, frequently is not on my person and when it is does not have enabled data, wifi, Bluetooth or GPS.) It is a phone in my hands.

I do not consume video over the net. I don't consume video. I'm not on facebook and the twitter account is useless.

E-hermit.

Though I think to the time of the setting for my current WIP - the late 1970s - and how quickly things changed. !977 to 1992 - and equivalent period from 2000 to 2015.  For a consumer, the big change was the advent of CD's. Now from 2000 to 2015 ... mp3's ?

I'm trying to catch the flavor of a quirky set of characters. I'm trying to decide how much they hang onto the past. I'm trying to decide how much their immediate world changes them.

I think my answer is that my characters stay much the same but the implements of their lives change.

My family - I lived with an Aunt and Uncle - were on a party line in the late 1970s. I have to decide how to handle this sort of fact. "Private lines" (we had those, too ) were luxuries which involved dedicated twisted pair all the way to your door. You paid Ma Bell a lot of money for that service in my world.

I've some temporal evaluations to do - but maybe for the next draft. I've got the core story to cover this draft.

I'm thinking, though.

So are you.

Don't let me catch you listening to the receiver on the party line when it isn't your ring.