100 Word Challenge: Future

In the late 50s, 60s and 70s, we had some really cool stuff. My generation was the first to have boom boxes and Pop Rocks, roller blades, Sony Walkman, Pong and Star Wars. I can remember with great clarity where I was when Neil Armstrong first walked on the moon.

We had the original Boy Bands – the Jackson Five and the Osmond Brothers. On the downside we had the assassinations of Pres. John F. Kennedy and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and nightly newscasts giving the daily death tolls of our soldiers fighting in Vietnam.

We Baby-Boomers were human remote controls. We played outside until street lights came on, we ate white bread and butter, we lived on soda pop and Moon Pies, and we survived.

What my generation had that my children’s doesn’t:

1. 8-track tapes
2. Rotary phones
3. Party telephone lines
4. Road maps
5. Rabbit ears/roof top antennas
6. S&H Green Stamps
7. Cars with only front seat lap belts
8. Crank car windows
9. 25¢ per gallon leaded gasoline
10. 48 United States

I think about the incredible world that my children have inherited. Technology that was once the stuff of science fiction fantasy. Changes in our social and political landscape that are both fantastic and frightening.

What our kids’ generation have, that we didn’t:

1. The Internet
2. Smartphones
3. Cable/satellite TV
4. Debit Cards
5. GPS
6. Harry Potter
7. Starbucks
8. Hybrid cars
9. Reality Television
10. Wireless Communication

Millennials are connected in ways we couldn’t image even 20 years ago. News is instantaneous. They can have a face-to-face conversation with someone thousands of miles away. They can ask their telephones questions and it answers them. Everything they could want is a key click away.

Sadly, they have al-Qaeda, the Taliban and Isis; September 11 and Boko Harem.

They have Black Lives Matter, Marriage Equality and a heightened social conscience. Though most are too young to remember, Millennials also saw the fall of the Berlin Wall.

What does the next 20 years portend? What will our children’s children have that their parents don’t have now?

“The future, according to some scientists, will be exactly like the past, only far more expensive” ~ John Sladek

This week’s word is:

Future

What to do:

Using “future” for inspiration, write 100 Words – 100 exactly – no more, no less. You can either use the word – or any form of the word – as one of your 100, or it can be implied. Include a link in your post back here, and add your story to the Mister Linky list. If you don’t have a blog, you can leave your submission in the comment section, or as a Facebook status post. Remember to keep spreading the love with supportive comments for your fellow Wordsters.