The Next Thing To Disappear

Things come and things go. I'm old enough now to start sentences with "I remember when we used to..." at which point teenagers and twenty-somethings roll their eyes. But the world does change and when it does things that some of us remember disappear for good, never to be experienced by the generations that follow.

Here are some of the things that have (mostly) disappeared during my life:

• Typewriters
• Transistor radios
• Rabbit-ear antenna on every television
• Rotary dial telephones
• LP records and 8-track tapes (and even cassette tapes)
• Cigarette lighters in cars
• Film cameras and 1-hour film developers
• Milk-men, milk trucks, milk boxes on the front steps
• Paper boys delivering daily newspapers, and stopping by weekly to collect
• Cars with simple engines you could tune-up at home

Maybe some of those things still are common in your corner of the world. And maybe your list of things that have disappeared is much longer or much different than my list. And maybe by now I sound like a grumpy old man. But I promise, I have a point.

If we can look back and see that things have disappeared, can we look around us in the present and guess at which of the things that we have now will disappear in the future?

This is my challenge to you. Look around you and consider the items in your life. Which of them will disappear in the next decade. Surely you admit that some of these things will fade away. Which?

Leave a comment and tell me at least one thing that is about to disappear. Try this exercise on your friends, and post their answers, too.

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