The Prairie Spy

Alan “Lindy” Linda

With another birthday behind me, I just kind of put some of what I am and feel into these words:

I am pre-cellphones. (When they put that big tower a couple miles west of me, I wrote a pretty negative column about what I thought about that thing spoiling my view. The public relations person and a lawyer from the telephone company showed up at my hardware store and asked me if there was going to  be any more writing like that? Oh. Well. I guess not. Been a big fan ever since.)

I am pre-ballpoint pens. (I remember ink wells in my desk and trying to pump ink into an uncooperative pen. And then trying to write with it on paper with hunks of bark in it.)

I am pre-fiberglas house insulation. The homes I grew up with were lucky to have a few sheets of newspaper inside the stud spaces. And the attic? Nothing but mice and bats.

I am pre-any kind of house insulation. We moved up here to an old house on 80 acres. I dumped several bags of vermiculite in the attic and thought I’d never had such an easy heating winter. (Of course that stuff was full of asbestos.)

I am pre-free long distance calling. But a lot of you reading this were, too.

I am pre-television. After a couple of years of electronics school, one of my first jobs was repairing tv’s. Black and white.

I am pre-color tv’s. By that time, I was more interested in HVAC.

I am pre-centralized heating and cooling. It was the electronic part of it that really pushed all the old-timers out and interested me. (We didn’t even have a window fan growing up in Iowa.) I am pre-computer. (As complicated as these things are, I’m still pre-computer.)

I am pre-Internet. I’m still kind of pre-Internet, because there’s a computer involved.

I am pre-antibiotics. If we kids got any kind of a cut or wound below the knee, it got some serious attention. Infection there was well known and deadly.

I am pre-vaccinations. Some of you reading this are statistically likely to be against vaccines. I wish you could see one person in an iron lung because of polio. 

I am pre-diesel engines. Diesel engines and lights on tractors? I blame them for farming becoming a business, instead of a life.

I am (almost) pre-rural electric lighting. I was pre where I was born.

For serving in the military, I am pre-shamed by a President of this great country. When I grew up, it was a duty, a privilege, and an honor to know you had served, like many of your relatives and ancestors had served.