The World Around Us, Part II

In my lifetime, a few things have changed not at all, or barely, and a few things have changed a great deal. The quality and safety of cars and planes has changed, but the speed of transportation has about held constant. A long-distance drive usually rounds out to a mile per minute, a cross-country flight is four hours.

Wait, let me start over. What has changed in my lifetime--the greatest and most comprehensive change I have known--has been in the area of communication. I can remember when there were six television stations on my hometown of Phoenix: the three networks, PBS, KPHO (one of the leading independent stations in the country) and Channel 15.

(Wait, while I'm writing here, I should pause and mention the Channel 15 of the late seventies and early eighties. This is a station that deserves a sliver of Phoenix history, a station reknowned for allowing 60s-70s TV shows a last blaze of glory before consignment to the dustbin: "Room 222," "The Partridge Family," and so on. It was also slightly known for its mid-day feature, "Good News Only," during which an anchor, "Jovial" Jack O'Reilly, sat in a swivel chair and read from a sheef of typescript he held in one meaty hand. There was also the case of the Channel 15 helicopter, the Bluebird of Happy News, piloted by a fellow whose name escapes me. We were treated to reports from the helicopter, and shots of the pilot climbing the building stairs to the helicopter, all of which--I think--was designed to obscure the fact that the Bluebird of Happy News, the helicopter, did not, in fact, exist. Finally: For awhile, every night at seven, Channel 15 would give way to a pay-movie station called ON TV, which my friend Bobby Paoletti's house had until it went out of business in 1982. Okay, back to the post.)

It is hard to explain to people about the march of technology in the last thirty years. Until I turned twenty-two or so, I would watch two baseball games a year on TV: NBC's Game of the Week, with Joe Garagiola and Tony Kubek (and, later, Vin Scully with Garagiola, and Bob Costas and Kubek in the B game), then Al Michaels with Tim McCarver and Jim Palmer on ABC's Monday Night Baseball. For a Yankees-Red Sox or Yankee-Oriole game, especially for NBC, my family would plan a day in advance, would actually shopfor hot dogs and chips to enjoy with the game. What else was there? Middle of the week, Catfish v. Spaceman, and we would have to rely on--maybe--the local news getting the score. There was no ESPN, no sports radio, no internet. Here we were, the last quarter of the twentieth century, and communication was blocked off to us. We had no way of knowing the score.

Now? Twelve gsmes a night on our package. Instant scores on the internet. Fifteen outlets providing updates. Amazing, man.

Just one example.