Baby Boomer Memory Lane: When Information Wasn’t Instant
We live in a digital instant information world now. I get it or at least try to. If something happened a half minute ago, it's around the world and into whatever kind of hi-tech device you happen to have. We live in a "right now" world of information.
But here's a surprise. It wasn't always that way.
Growing up on that little farm by Leota Minnesota, our daily paper was the Worthington Dailey Globe. Worthington was, oh, I guess about 30 miles or so from that spot we called home, the closest town with a daily paper. So that was the one for us and for most of our neighbors.
We got that paper everyday back then. Well, everyday except Sunday of course. It was only them high falutin' big city folks that put a paper out on Sundays. So it was Monday through Saturday, 6 days a week.
And always a day late.
Yes, on Thursday we'd get Wednesday's paper in the mailbox. On Friday we'd get Thursday's and...well you get the idea.
And by the way, yes, we would get the Saturday paper on Monday just like clockwork.
We never questioned it and no one else did either. Why did we get the news a day late? Well for cryin' out loud, it was 30 miles to Worthington! And because it was that far the paper would be a day late. A day late with the local news, sports, who died, who was in the hospital and who had coffee where.
Oh, the national news was on time. As long as you waited for Walter Cronkite Monday through Friday at 5:30pm.
And the most important news of the day? Oh, that was instant.
Just go to the local cafe and catch up with whats going on.