How DID We Do It?

I am in the middle of nowhere and I can get any information I want anywhere, anytime. We were talking at dinner tonite about the process of writing a paper in high school or college back in the day. You had to go to a library. You had to go to a good library if you wanted to write a good paper. When I was in school in Wellesley, MA, we often had to go to Wellesley College or to the Boston Public Library. You had to have a library card. In the case of the Boston Public Library, we had to get a cab to the subway, take a train into town, change trains, know the library hours, go to the card catalogue, find random reference books, go to the stacks and find the books, find a place to sit quietly, take notes in a notebook, get frustrated when you couldn't find what you wanted, go talk with the research librarian, wait for her to scout out stuff, write down every piece of info you could, go back to school, write the paper, borrow a typewriter, fix the ribbon, find carbon paper to make a carbon copy, re-do the page if you made a typo, borrow white-out for little mistakes, carry the paper to class, hand it in, wish you had more time, more books, more paper, a better typewriter, a different teacher, hope the teacher didn't notice that you skipped three lines instead of two in order that your paper looked longer.....it was kind of like that.

So today you lie in bed, go on the internet, get your info, write the thing, press "send" and the  teacher has it instantly. I can't imagine how we learned anything. At the same time, I can't imagine how kids learn anything with the current process. It is all quite confusing how things work.

My parents generation spent a huge amount of time learning penmanship. Sounds whacky these days, but I think that taught them more than what meets the eye. Some skills might hold more treasure than is easily apparent. I miss getting beautifully written notes. I even kind of miss the Dewey Decimal System. I really miss the smell of a new book and a new notebook and a graphite pencil.

I am off to check my email and read on my Kindle.