On Saving Things
Aug. 21st, 2005 10:58 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
c9I'm a packrat. I don't think to a huge degree, but certainly to a certain degree. [what a useful statement. --ed] I have old textbooks, but only some. I have comic books I'll probably never read again (along with several hundred I like to read every once in a while). Where my packrat style really comes to the fore is on my hard drive(s). I have old music files, old TV commercials (Apple, Nortel, EDS, GAP), every website I've ever had (even if I never actually launched it), ... the list goes on and on. Most of the multimedia style stuff is from the past ten years, ever since I had insane bandwidth and speed when New Brunswick was testing DSL so UNB students could get it before other places in North America, and when Bell was testing DSL the next year so ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
petele and I had 2Mb service back when *everyone* was on dial-up. Of course, it was expensive, but it rocked our worlds.
Today I was scanning through some of my saved text files from before 1995. In high school, several of my friends (jpman, saviolo, and others) had National Capital FreeNet (NCF) accounts. FreeNets, for those unfamiliar, are free dial-up services providing computer network / Internet access for all. Run off a UNIX system, but with a complicated menu structure on top so you never have to learn any UNIX commands. NCF had email, it had chatrooms, it had UseNet access, plus its own complement of NCF-specific newsgroups. I spent hours upon hours on that site, posting to various groups like the "ysig", the NCF-based youth special interest group. If you google my name, the YSIG yearbook appears. The first time I said "I'm gay" I actually typed it. It was great fun.
Back when I didn't have always-on Internet -- hell, back when I didn't have World Wide Web at all -- I would save things that I found funny, or weird, or meaningful, or technically informative. I found a one-page tutorial on UNIX permissions (back before I was certified and teaching it!), a treatise byiambic_cub on "making girls cry" (at the opera), an entire folder of dangerous thoughtcrime entitled BCS: Portrait of a Madman, and all sorts of other things. Oddest thing: fifty-four episodes of Star Trek Door Repair Guy, a fanfic satire of Star Trek written by a fellow NCF member from 1993 on. 1.3 MB worth of it. Insanely funny, especially due to the commercial-break appearances of Heritage Minutes, Bob Cowan, and more Ottawa- and Canada-specific references.
I also keep a folder called Forwards - Serious, which might as well be titled Chicken Soup For Cameron's Soul. I kept things that I really found touching or meaningful, and was re-reading some of them today. Some of them are kinda sappy -- scratch that. They're all very sappy. But my older and colder heart was warmed a bit by reading them. I include one below that actually made me cry. I suspect I am over-tired. :-)
When I was quite young, my father had one of the first telephones in our neighbourhood. I remember well, the polished, old case fastened to the wall and shiny receiver on the side of the box.
I was too little to reach the telephone, but used to listen with fascination when my mother used to talk to it. Then I discovered that somewhere inside the wonderful device lived an amazing person - her name
was "Information Please" and there was nothing she did not know.
"Information Please" could supply anybody's number and the correct time.
My first personal experience with this genie-in-the-bottle came one day while my mother was visiting a neighbour. Amusing myself at the tool bench in the basement. I whacked my finger with a hammer. The pain was terrible, but there didn't seem to be any reason in crying because there was no one home to give sympathy. I walked around the house sucking my throbbing finger, finally arriving at the stairway.
The telephone! Quickly, I ran for the footstool in the parlour and dragged it to the landing. Climbing up, I unhooked the receiver in the parlour and held it to my ear. "Information Please," I said into the
mouthpiece just above my head. A click or two and a small clear voice spoke into my ear.
"Information"
"I hurt my finger." I wailed into the phone. The tears came readily enough now that I had an audience.
"Isn't your mother home?" came the question.
Nobody's home but me," I blubbered.
"Are you bleeding?" the voice asked.
"No," I replied. "I hit my finger with the hammer and it hurts."
"Can you open your icebox?" she asked. I said I could. "Then chip off a little piece of ice and hold it to your finger," said the voice.
After that, I called "Information Please" for everything. I asked her for help with my geography and she told me where Philadelphia was. She helped me with my math. She told me my pet chipmunk, that I had caught in the park just the day before, would eat fruit and nuts.
Then, there was the time Petey, our pet canary died. I called "Information Please" and told her the sad story. She listened, then said the usual things grown ups say to soothe a child. But I was un-consoled. I asked her, "Why is it that birds should sing so beautifully and bring joy to all families, only to end up as a heap of feathers on the bottom of a cage?"
She must have sensed my deep concern, for she said quietly, "Paul, always remember that there are other worlds to sing in."
Somehow I felt better.
Another day I was on the telephone. "Information Please."
"Information," said the now familiar voice.
"How do you spell fix?" I asked.
All this took place in a small town in the Pacific northwest. When I was nine years old, we moved across the country to Boston. I missed my friend very much. "Information Please" belonged in that old wooden box back home and I somehow never thought of trying the tall, shiny new phone that sat on the table in the hall. As I grew into my teens, the memories of those childhood conversations never really left me. Often, in moments of doubt and perplexity I would recall the serene sense of security I had then. I appreciated now how patient, understanding and kind she was to have spent her time on a little boy.
A few years later, on my way west to college, my plane put down in Seattle. I had about half-an-hour or so between planes. I spent 15 minutes or so on the phone with my sister, who lived there now. Then, without thinking what I was doing, I dialed my hometown operator and said, "Information, please."
Miraculously, I heard the small, clear voice I knew so well. "Information."
I hadn't planned this, but I heard myself saying, "Could you please tell me how to spell fix?"
There was a long pause. Then came the soft spoken answer, "I guess your finger must have healed by now."
I laughed, "So it's really still you," I said. "I wonder if you have any idea how much you meant to me during that time."
"I wonder," she said, "if you know how much your calls meant to me. I never had any children and I used to look forward to your calls."
I told her how often I had thought of her over the years and I asked if I could call her again when I came back to visit my sister.
"Please do," she said. "Just ask for Sally."
Three months later I was back in Seattle. A different voice answered, "Information."
I asked for Sally. "Are you a friend?" she said.
"Yes, a very old friend," I answered.
"I'm sorry to have to tell you this," she said. "Sally had been working part time the last few years because she was sick. She died five weeks ago." Before I could hang up she said, "Wait a minute. Did you say your name was Paul?"
"Yes."
"Well, Sally left a message for you. She wrote it down in case you called. Let me read it to you." The note said, "Tell him I still say there are other worlds to sing in. He'll know what I mean. I thanked her and hung up. I know what Sally meant. Never underestimate the impression you may make on others. Whose life have you touched today?
So that's today's little tale. Hope everyone's having a fun weekend. My parents will be arriving shortly for lunch and to see our new kitchen. Wooo!
petele and I had 2Mb service back when *everyone* was on dial-up. Of course, it was expensive, but it rocked our worlds.Today I was scanning through some of my saved text files from before 1995. In high school, several of my friends (
jpman, saviolo, and others) had National Capital FreeNet (NCF) accounts. FreeNets, for those unfamiliar, are free dial-up services providing computer network / Internet access for all. Run off a UNIX system, but with a complicated menu structure on top so you never have to learn any UNIX commands. NCF had email, it had chatrooms, it had UseNet access, plus its own complement of NCF-specific newsgroups. I spent hours upon hours on that site, posting to various groups like the "ysig", the NCF-based youth special interest group. If you google my name, the YSIG yearbook appears. The first time I said "I'm gay" I actually typed it. It was great fun.Back when I didn't have always-on Internet -- hell, back when I didn't have World Wide Web at all -- I would save things that I found funny, or weird, or meaningful, or technically informative. I found a one-page tutorial on UNIX permissions (back before I was certified and teaching it!), a treatise by
iambic_cub on "making girls cry" (at the opera), an entire folder of dangerous thoughtcrime entitled BCS: Portrait of a Madman, and all sorts of other things. Oddest thing: fifty-four episodes of Star Trek Door Repair Guy, a fanfic satire of Star Trek written by a fellow NCF member from 1993 on. 1.3 MB worth of it. Insanely funny, especially due to the commercial-break appearances of Heritage Minutes, Bob Cowan, and more Ottawa- and Canada-specific references.I also keep a folder called Forwards - Serious, which might as well be titled Chicken Soup For Cameron's Soul. I kept things that I really found touching or meaningful, and was re-reading some of them today. Some of them are kinda sappy -- scratch that. They're all very sappy. But my older and colder heart was warmed a bit by reading them. I include one below that actually made me cry. I suspect I am over-tired. :-)
When I was quite young, my father had one of the first telephones in our neighbourhood. I remember well, the polished, old case fastened to the wall and shiny receiver on the side of the box.
I was too little to reach the telephone, but used to listen with fascination when my mother used to talk to it. Then I discovered that somewhere inside the wonderful device lived an amazing person - her name
was "Information Please" and there was nothing she did not know.
"Information Please" could supply anybody's number and the correct time.
My first personal experience with this genie-in-the-bottle came one day while my mother was visiting a neighbour. Amusing myself at the tool bench in the basement. I whacked my finger with a hammer. The pain was terrible, but there didn't seem to be any reason in crying because there was no one home to give sympathy. I walked around the house sucking my throbbing finger, finally arriving at the stairway.
The telephone! Quickly, I ran for the footstool in the parlour and dragged it to the landing. Climbing up, I unhooked the receiver in the parlour and held it to my ear. "Information Please," I said into the
mouthpiece just above my head. A click or two and a small clear voice spoke into my ear.
"Information"
"I hurt my finger." I wailed into the phone. The tears came readily enough now that I had an audience.
"Isn't your mother home?" came the question.
Nobody's home but me," I blubbered.
"Are you bleeding?" the voice asked.
"No," I replied. "I hit my finger with the hammer and it hurts."
"Can you open your icebox?" she asked. I said I could. "Then chip off a little piece of ice and hold it to your finger," said the voice.
After that, I called "Information Please" for everything. I asked her for help with my geography and she told me where Philadelphia was. She helped me with my math. She told me my pet chipmunk, that I had caught in the park just the day before, would eat fruit and nuts.
Then, there was the time Petey, our pet canary died. I called "Information Please" and told her the sad story. She listened, then said the usual things grown ups say to soothe a child. But I was un-consoled. I asked her, "Why is it that birds should sing so beautifully and bring joy to all families, only to end up as a heap of feathers on the bottom of a cage?"
She must have sensed my deep concern, for she said quietly, "Paul, always remember that there are other worlds to sing in."
Somehow I felt better.
Another day I was on the telephone. "Information Please."
"Information," said the now familiar voice.
"How do you spell fix?" I asked.
All this took place in a small town in the Pacific northwest. When I was nine years old, we moved across the country to Boston. I missed my friend very much. "Information Please" belonged in that old wooden box back home and I somehow never thought of trying the tall, shiny new phone that sat on the table in the hall. As I grew into my teens, the memories of those childhood conversations never really left me. Often, in moments of doubt and perplexity I would recall the serene sense of security I had then. I appreciated now how patient, understanding and kind she was to have spent her time on a little boy.
A few years later, on my way west to college, my plane put down in Seattle. I had about half-an-hour or so between planes. I spent 15 minutes or so on the phone with my sister, who lived there now. Then, without thinking what I was doing, I dialed my hometown operator and said, "Information, please."
Miraculously, I heard the small, clear voice I knew so well. "Information."
I hadn't planned this, but I heard myself saying, "Could you please tell me how to spell fix?"
There was a long pause. Then came the soft spoken answer, "I guess your finger must have healed by now."
I laughed, "So it's really still you," I said. "I wonder if you have any idea how much you meant to me during that time."
"I wonder," she said, "if you know how much your calls meant to me. I never had any children and I used to look forward to your calls."
I told her how often I had thought of her over the years and I asked if I could call her again when I came back to visit my sister.
"Please do," she said. "Just ask for Sally."
Three months later I was back in Seattle. A different voice answered, "Information."
I asked for Sally. "Are you a friend?" she said.
"Yes, a very old friend," I answered.
"I'm sorry to have to tell you this," she said. "Sally had been working part time the last few years because she was sick. She died five weeks ago." Before I could hang up she said, "Wait a minute. Did you say your name was Paul?"
"Yes."
"Well, Sally left a message for you. She wrote it down in case you called. Let me read it to you." The note said, "Tell him I still say there are other worlds to sing in. He'll know what I mean. I thanked her and hung up. I know what Sally meant. Never underestimate the impression you may make on others. Whose life have you touched today?
So that's today's little tale. Hope everyone's having a fun weekend. My parents will be arriving shortly for lunch and to see our new kitchen. Wooo!
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Date: 2005-08-22 07:15 am (UTC)The Tandy was my first x86, my first PC, but not my first computer: we had a TI-99 (not sure which variant). Built-in BASIC in BIOS, a cartridge slot (my parents bought four math games and a tank game called Blasto I think)... I could program in BASIC and same it on analog tape in an attached tape recorder. Surreal.