The "Going...Going...Gone" Story

The obsolete?

It was an ordinary day.  Taking the battery out of my Nikon Coolpix camera before I throw it away.  If I happen to buy another Nikon camera, maybe the battery will fit in the new one and I will then have a spare.  But, not sure I want another Nikon, since this one lasted for such a short time before it went kaput. It was the third small size digital camera I have owned since giving up on film cameras.  Photo film has been listed as one of the items that is just about obsolete in our modern society.  That, along with tube televisions, Rolodex, printed encyclopedias, bank deposit slips, phone books, answering machines and soon to be obsolete incandescent light bulbs.  Yep, the old Kodak film roll isn't long for this world.  For years and years I taught film photography in high school and helped students hand-roll canister after canister of film.  Hey, after buying my first digital camera I have never taken another film photograph.  Why would I want to?  Recently saw an article about other items that will slowly vanish from society in the near future.  Things such as the analog clock.  That along with the wristwatch will be hard for me to give up, but with cellphones and digital clocks that are synced perfectly to satellites, why chance forgetting to turn the clock forward or backward with the change from daylight to regular time.  Another item is the home phone.  Often thought about getting rid of my land line, but fear that if I give it up, how will people find me if they try to look me up in the phone book.  Oh yeah, I forgot that the phonebook will be obsolete soon also.  What I may really miss though is going out to the mail box to get the daily mail.  Revenue will eventually dry up for the postal department and with the world going toward total electronic communications, why will I need a mail box.  Then there is cursive writing.  Or I guess I should say, then there was cursive writing.  Have any children in school right now?  Do they teach them cursive?  Probably not.  Hawaii, Indiana, Illinois and Ohio have officially dropped handwriting as an educational requirement and many other states are thinking about dropping it.  To me that is really sad.  What will happen to the hand-written thank you note and special invitation or the letter to mom or dad from summer camp ...... all will be lost to the electronic devices we now have, even as pre-teenagers.  How impersonal is that?  And, another soon to be obsolete item is money.  By 2020 it is predicted that only 10% of all monetary transactions will be in cash.   Electronic payment systems will replace our coins and greenbacks, making them even more collectible.   All the different passwords that I have trouble remembering when I want to check my different accounts online will not be necessary when all I will have to do is place my finger on a reader or look into a monitor to unlock them.  Now the last item that I will list is one that I can't believe will ever become obsolete, but I have read several places that it will be gone forever in my lifetime is toilet paper.  Can you believe that?  Toilet-seat bidets will wash and dry you at the touch of a button, eliminating paper waste, and may eliminate soap since why will you need to wash your hands after using the bathroom.  Wouldn't it be nice to stop time!  It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.