WOULDN'T IT BE GREAT

Memory can be like a leaky faucet. When you turn it off it may slow down to a trickle but it keeps on giving. In 1977 we lived in an old farmhouse with a step-down from the kitchen to what had been a closed in porch with a door in the floor that led to the basement. Some time later, someone extended the room with a dirt floor and a back door. I finished the room with a real floor all the way to the back wall, paneling, a dropped ceiling, lighting and a wood burning stove with a hearth. I got a good deal on carpet samples, sewed them together by hand and we had a family room. There was just enough space between the kitchen wall and the pull-up door for a wardrobe we used as an entertainment center. If someone needed to go down in the basement while watching TV everyone sitting on the floor had to get up and pull back the carpet so we could open the door in the floor. 

Our television set was made of red plastic, about the size of a small suitcase with a handle on top, a 17” screen with a black and white picture. There was no remote control, to turn it on and off you had to twist a dial. To change channels you had to twist a different dial. The kids could all sit together, legs crossed on the carpet a few feet back from the screen. Two favorite programs were animated time-travel spoofs, The Flintstones were a typical Stone Age family with primitive technology and modern behavior. The Jetsons were from the future with yet to be invented flying cars & robot housekeepers. It was great entertainment, a time when adults were as simple as the program their kids were watching. 

Forty-plus years later I find myself going to a coffee klatch with my niece. She is living in her camper in my back yard this summer to avoid the heat and hurricanes in south Florida where her furniture lives. She usually drives her two year-old Tesla and I ride along in the all electric smart car. The experience rivals astronauts checking with Mission Control, switching from mode to mode as they prepare for docking. Almost everything with the Tesla responds to voice command and almost-radar displays other vehicles coming or going and won’t let you get too close to any of them.

Coming home from coffee she asked if I wanted to do a demo ride in the new, self-driving model. So the guy at Tesla checks her out and she knew as much as he did. She drives up the street, pulls off in a shady spot, touches an icon on the big screen and tells the car we want to go to Trader Joe’s on Ward Parkway. She folded her arms and leaned back in the seat while the car pulls out into traffic. We held firm at the speed limit, centered up in the proper lane, changing lanes when necessary and braking hard when other drivers misbehaved. I was grinning like my kids used to but they are too old now to grin like that. We drove around south Kansas City for almost an hour. At Trader Joe’s negotiating traffic around rows of parked cars was like running with the bulls at Pamplona. Terry pointed the car at the space on thee control screen. It was easy, just point and hit the ‘Go’ button. When I got out I looked down at my feet and the only words that came to mind were; “One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.” 

O.M.G. I have seen it, done it in my lifetime. I have transitioned from Fred Flintstone’s Stone Age boulder-cars and pedal powered technology to George Jetson’s Artificial Intelligence and automated shuttles. I don’t think I have either the time or money to tap into the self-driving. Too much new stuff for me to assimilate and short of $$ for a retired biology teacher’s benefits. Having my own self-driving vehicle may be too much to hope for but you never know. I am still impressed with the superimposed lines on my car’s backup camera that guide me backward into spaces so I can pull straight ahead coming out. Talking to my car doesn’t do anything but I can unlock the doors and start the motor from inside the house. Wouldn’t it be great if I live long enough to have my own Tesla toothbrush that lets me sleep while it scrubs my teeth!