It's interesting to see how some things start out as luxury items and over time become necessities. Here's an article from the Washington Post about cell phones in high school. Some people are considering them necessities. Not too many years ago, cell phones were luxury items for all but business professionals who travelled a lot.

This article got me thinking about high school necessities. I guess I'm beginning to feel my age (44). I graduated high school in 1975. At the time, there were no VCRs, no CD players, no personal computers, no word processors or spreadsheets, no one had heard of the Internet (it was called ARPANET then and few people had heard of that, either), only a handful of people had email, the World Wide Web was just a dream of a few visionaries. Hell, most people didn't even have microwave ovens in their homes back then. Imagine that.

In my sophomore chemistry class, I did my calculations using a slide rule (still have it and still know how to use it) because calculators had just been invented and a basic 4-function model cost over $100. I got my first calculator a year later for physics class. It was a 4-function model with square root and only cost $60. Progress! I remember taking Trig class and having to look up values in trig or log tables to 4 decimal places and do the math by hand. Talk about calculator appreciation after that!

My point, I suppose, is that whole generations managed to actually get an education without any of today's "necessities." We did it the old fashioned way, by looking up things in books and by hand. I guess I'm officially qualifying myself for "old fartdom".

BTW: my wife and I finally broke down and got ourselves cell phones last year. We love them and would hate to give them up, but we could if we choose. If our microwave oven quit, we'd immediately get a replacement. As for our rice cooker, we keep a spare. As my Asian bride warned me years ago, "I can live without you, I can't live without rice." It's nice to know your place in a relationship.