This past weekend, my parents came to visit. Of course after catching up for a bit, my mom posed the question, “how are your classes going?” Having the experience of EPI still fresh in my mind, I began talking about the printing press. To my surprise, my dad knew all about it. He told me about how when he was in school they had print classes where they would work with printing presses. He knew about the intricate process of putting each metal letter one by one into the palate; he knew about the inking process; and he knew about the strength needed to work the press itself. Keep in mind, my parents are on the older side, but this really outdated them, from my generation. When I picture people working at printing presses, what comes to mind are old figures like Benjamin Franklin, not my mom and dad. However, it was neat that something so foreign to me could be so familiar to my parents.

Our conversation stemmed further into technologies of the past when my dad brought up how in addition to the printing industry, the music industry is also not the same as it was when he was growing up. ” You know there once was a time when you actually had to go to the record store when you wanted to hear a song,” my dad claimed. His statement reminded me of a quote from Sound Recording: The Life Story of a Technology. “sound recording was on the verge of its first commercial peak. The fifteen years after 1910 would see the record player become a widely diffused consumer item” (Morton 42). Although I may jokingly make fun of my parents age, I am almost jealous. I mean, look at all the technological breakthroughs that they got to experience. Of course, you can argue that we are living in the prime of technology. But, they got to live through the first real breakthroughs. How cool is that?