100 YEARS !

Dad celebrates 100 years and looks like he can go for another 10!
Family from all over the U.S. came together to help him celebrate.

I can't imagine living 100 years.    I think of all the changes in my own life of well over half a century.                                           I remember when the doors were never locked and I could knock on any neighbor's door on my way home from school if I  needed help.  I remember the telephone before it had a dial.                                   We simply asked the operator to connect us to another with a seven digit number.                                       When the dial on the heavy black phone was implemented, we thought we were totally in the tech age - well before the tech age.                                                                    Then came the Princess phone in a half-dozen colors that one could have in her own room.              How I envied those who could have one.                                    Our family was large and practical, and did fine with one dial phone in the kitchen.

Then came a variety of phones until we saw the 'portable' phone.  

It was huge and was mostly for very rich people.  

  In the mean time the computer was gaining popularity outside of big businesses.

Perfect words for this month, found at a Mpls. flower shop.
Dad's Birthday celebration will stay in our hearts
from now through eternity.

When I was young, a 'computer' took up an entire room in my dad's company.

Paper cards punched with a variety of holes were consolidated or sorted.

The binary system was the way to go.

Then came the desk top computer and its many stages.

1200 2nd Street, downtown Minneapolis,

Designed and engineered by Hewitt & Brown, Pike & Cook, build ca. 1920.

Home to Dad's Security Life firm, from May 1956 until ?

Added to the national Register of Historic Places in 1984.

All too soon we could take our heavy 'portable' computers home on the weekends.

Cornice over the front door of the above building
A grand entrance into 'Security for Life.'

Then, VOILA, the computer CHIP . . .  the greatest invention of the century in my humble opinion.

[New parents may say that disposable diapers are the greatest invention known to man.]

This CHIP exploded technology into mini-computers that are now the size of a watch.

It's the chip that gives us the ability to stuff incredible power and diversity into a tiny space so that we carry around this rectangle that does everything a computer can do but it is now called a PHONE.

Who ever thought a phone would come this far and be so full of technology.
Text messaging overtook the voice for those younger ones at the quarter-century mark.    Instant connection,  24-7-365.  

The younger ones may wonder how anyone could live without this computer-phone at their side.                               I scramble to keep up with changes of the past year much less a century.

Dad's sister could not make it to the big bash but
she was on the phone with me the next day wondering why
her package was returned just because she had
one number wrong but had the Name of the
complex he lives in.  It's another world today.

Above is the building dad purchased to house his incredible adventure before it became too large and he moved to even grander digs.

 His dream came true, grew and expanded to a greatness that he was very much part of until his 90s.

And so my father sits and absorbs the cacophony of noise and movement and revelry at the party.                                        

I wonder what he is thinking.

The speeches, the toasts, the wonder of it all.     We all came together  . . .  and then . . . when the celebration was finished . . . we returned to our daily commitments and responsibilities.

At least we took time to help dad remember the generations he has embraced over the years.

Children, Grand children, Great Grandchildren, gathered together to celebrate 100 Years!
The pictures that many took on their phones, are now being distributed through a computer web site.

What a wild ride we are experiencing.
I can't even imagine how dad has embraced it.
Remember past blogs when I spoke of his sister?
She is a super tech at 102 1/2 years and still going strong.

So I drink in the words of the sign I found at a small flower shop when we visited dad.

"For those who love, time is eternity."
I love where I am right now, with life spinning past me at the mach speed of technology.

I, too, watch and listen and absorb the moments and simply celebrate this time of my life.