The Future

Look, Up In The Sky!

39 Comments

Today’s post comes from perennial sophomore Bubby Spamden, a permanent 10th grader at Wendell Willkie High School.

Hey, Mr. C.,

We got to talking about the future in Mr. Boozenporn’s class today. He says it’s going to be amazing, and that we’re not going to appreciate it because we haven’t had any handicaps like the ones he had when he was growing up, such as a closet full of ’70’s fashions.

I really do like these days when we can get Mr. B talking about himself – it’s SO educational even though some of my classmates think it’s super boring. But Mr. B has been through a lot, and we’ll all wind up having pretty good lives if we can escape being as disillusioned as him.

To make his point, he showed us two videos. Neither one was listed in the syllabus and he said they won’t be featured on any of the standardized tests we have to take, but they show exactly how things go – you grow up with an impossible dream in your head and then against all odds – it happens! But here’s the catch – when it comes true it’s kinda pale compared to what you had in mind – not nearly as great, literally, but somehow better looking. Weirdly.

His example was the wild idea of a flying car, which he said filled his imagination when he was little.


And now it looks like a Flying Car, or “Supercar”, will really be a real reality someday soon, possibly as early as 2017.

And yet it’s kinda disappointing.

I think the real flying car kinda looks like an insect, which is not too cool-looking compared to the original “Supercar”. But I guess as you get older, you kinda make compromises along the way, which is what makes it possible for those dreams to get a little closer to being true. “But you can see in the ad,” Mr. B said, “that it will only be within reach of paunchy white-haired CEO-type guys like the one in the ad, and not normal people like you and me.”

And I guess that’s the way it turns out most of the time – the best toys go to the folks with all the money, and not to marionettes of kids and monkeys, or schoolteachers.

Your pal,
Bubby

What childhood dream of yours has come true?

39 thoughts on “Look, Up In The Sky!”

  1. With the advent of the Apple watch we are dangerously close to the Dick Tracy wrist communicator. You still need your iPhone nearby to allow your watch to work as a phone, so I don’t think we’re all the way there yet. Plus there is the thing, too, that like they flying care they are only affordable for to paunchy white dude CEOs (btw – heard a stat this week that I cannot get out of my head because it is so appalling: there are more large companies in the US run by men named John than there are run by women. Ick. Maybe some of us women should change our names to John…)

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    1. I disagree with bubby, I think the flying car is exceptionally cool. I think it shows what America has become form an automotive point of view… if oyu can seat 4 and take your garage full of sundries with you everywhere you go its a cramped space. airplane guys have for years dealt with reality. the small cramped space is a given to pilots and astronauts. 59 cadalac with the big fins were cool in the mega era of us design when being a pig consumer was as American as apple pie. tody I want to fly with maximum mile to the gallon. but if we could work on that landing a bit… the clover getting stuck in the bumbper ha sme thinking a modified suspension is in order before the cul de sac is a possibility for landing this baby

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    2. Speaking of which, l was deeply disappointed last week by Uber. I’d never heard of it before, then after discovering it, was thrilled that I’d finally found a low cost way to go to and from the airport. This has been the primary obstacle to flying for me since a cab costs $95 each way.

      Then, they told me I couldn’t use their service unless I had a smart phone with something called an “ap”. I accused him of age discrimination against all of the seniors with flip top cell phones.

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      2. they cant provide a service to people who wont have the ability to “reach out”
        operators and talking take time and money vs boom boom of location and quote a fare ad get a driver out there.all for 25 cents. its a new world and some people still order stuff with a pencil but its getting harder to find sellers who want to do business that way.
        smart phone costs are way below 65 a month today. pony up to the new millenium grandma. get with it

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  4. As you all know, I am extremely fond of my smartphone, although never in my childhood would I have even thought of having a communicator/datebook/reference library stuffed in my pocket in such a little thing I often think I have left it behind someplace until a reminder goes off and tells me where it is.

    The fact that if I so chose I could also have plenty of classic fiction reading in there too is just all that much icing on the cake.

    The mundane stuff that I always figured would eventually happen when I was a child? my life is nothing like that.

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    1. A year ago for my birthday, my kids tried to give me a smart phone. I didn’t want to hurt their feelings, but had to point out all the reasons l didn’t need one. 1) l rarely leave home; 2) any communication I want to do can be done on the Macbook one foot away; 3) cable has lovely music and the remote sits right next to me; 4) my appointment calendar is as close by as Mac; 5) learning anything this technological would take more years to learn than l have life left. The ONLY advantage to having one of these is for texting and l can’t imagine typing on an itsy bitsy keyboard. The ultimate reason for refusing this gift, however, was that it’d cost me a minimum of $65/month. Just for texting? I don’t think so!

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      1. I almost never text on mine.

        I also only open up my computer once a day and my sole internet line is through the phone.

        I also hear a lot about how it cuts off communication with the person sitting in front of you-also not true in my case. If I am looking something up on the phone, it Is often part of the ongoing conversation.

        Like anything else, the device is all about the person holding it.

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      2. I have a smart phone and love it. Texting and all. But it only costs me $10 a month….

        But we’re all different. Good for you for realizing you DON’T need one.

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        1. What kind of phone and plan are you on, ljb? After my scare of the freeway a couple of weeks ago, I’m considering getting a cell phone for emergency purposes.

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        2. Pj-the s&h has a little flip that even before he got added to my phone bill was $10/mo- and yes, he can text on it too (which he doesn’t unless I tell him he has to check in).

          We got his at Radio Shack and bought a three month card for $30 and then just kept renewing it with a credit card every 3 mos.

          There are limits on the number of calls and texts, but they are pretty easy to stay inside.

          FWIW , any charged phone will call 911, whether you have a plan or not. We keep my old phone and charger in the car, just in case.

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        3. PJ – I use republic wireless. You have to pay for the phone; they only have a few models (the mot-x, the moto-g, and the moto-e) and they have a few plans. My $10 gives me unlimited talk & text anywhere – plus data using Wi-Fi. For my trip, I’m switching to the $25 plan for 2 weeks, so I can get data without Wi-Fi. I’ve been quite happy with it.

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        5. My car stalled – fuel pump quit – on I-94 heading east from downtown St. Paul. The two left lanes were exit lanes to the upcoming HWY 61 heading south. I was in the far right of the four lanes continuing straight ahead. So there I was, high speed traffic whizzing by to both my right and left. I sat there, terrified that some inattentive driver would smash into my rear end; luckily that didn’t happen although several cars came awfully close. With a little help from two young women in one car, they managed to stop traffic in the two exit lanes long enough for me to run to the side of the road, but with my car still stranded in the middle. Then another car with a young couple stopped. Again they stopped traffic and pushed my car – across two lanes of traffic – to the shoulder. Then a State Trooper – summoned by the first car that stopped – arrived, and called a tow truck. I consider myself very lucky to have survived that ordeal unscathed – if a little shook up.

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        7. Yikes, PJ, that does sound horrifying. Tom Keith had something very similar happen to him on 94 westbound around the 280 exit. He was traumatized by it, and for him, that was extremely rare!

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        9. tim, I was in the innermost lane that continued east. Had I been in either of the two lanes to the right of me (not left as I wrote above), I would have been in the exit only lanes.

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        10. I like the right lane. I feel secure there. I have had a tire blow out and two timing belts break while on freeways. For all three incidents I was in the right lane.

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  5. Call me a dreamer, but grant that I dreamed large. When I was just a boy it came to me like a bolt of lightning from the sky. Some day the average person would have a magical device on their desk, an astonishing machine that would let them reach out and connect to the rest of the world via one huge network. Just imagine! And with that machine, at any time of the day, i would be able to summon up a little movie of a cat falling into a bathtub!!! And, lo, it has happened just as I dreamed!!

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    2. I went to Disney with my kids 20 years ago and the end of the space mountain rollercoaster sponsored by at&t was the scene where the kid in America was sitting on their bed talking with the kid in japan and looking at them while they talked on the phone. I remember seeing something like it on captain kangaroo 40 or 50 years ago, it was magic to imagine. when I started going to Disney 20 years ago it was still the future. along the way they pulled it because it was past tense. boom and it was old school. you don’t need to sit in front of the phone. just get a selfie stick and broadcast on facebook to the 1500 friends you talk to everyday. how many likes do you get with an insta gram? the social media network is unbelievable. the interests you share with the people you have common likes with make it a coffee klatch everywhere you go
      what a world

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      1. mr gores other thing is in the news today too
        that global warming melting of the polar icecap 5 year california drought more snow in boston than ever thing . what an inconvenient truth

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  6. I don’t recall many dreams coming true from my first childhood but now that I’m on my second, being able to travel to foreign countries is a dream come true.

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  7. I always wanted a terrier dog with a beard. I have had three thus far. Our current terrier is 13 and I think this is her last winter, given some emerging health issues. She won’t be our last terrier, either.

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  9. I’ve been trying to remember my dreams all day; I guess being a dancer and being a comedienne would be mine. In a way I’ve gotten to do both, though not the way I fantasized… folk dance instead of ballet, and just occasionally making people laugh instead of being Carol Burnett.

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  10. I remember being a kid and visiting a neighbors farm. And in the milk house, there was a glass jar the milk would come into (called a ‘receiver jar’) and I wanted to have a big glass jar like that. And I got one eventually.
    And it was always as cool as I thought it would be.
    I loved standing in the milk house while the cows were milking and watching milk rush into that jar. When it got to a preset level, a pump would switch on and the milk would be pumped over to the bulk tank.
    It was really cool.

    And I wanted a big green tractor. Got that too. But there’s always a bigger one out there…

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  11. Our neighbors had a bird house for purple martins. Always thought that was cool. It looked sort of like a miniature Southern mansion. I have never had a purple martin house, though – closest I’ve come is a few cardinal and thrasher nests in the shrubbery.

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