This is cross posted from my Single Dad blog, but I think its relevant for the Dad-O-Matic audience too.

I had an exchange with 10.5 today (through a closed bathroom door might I add) that made me chuckle slightly, and appreciate the differences of the changed world in which we live.  And in this case, I am not talking about change as a bad thing, or the catalyst for bad things.

She took the phone into the bathroom for privacy while talking to her best friend.  When I walked by the door and heard the muffled voice I asked (through the door) if she was in her phone booth.  She replied, “What’s a phone booth?”

I answered back that it was an obscure reference, never mind.

Today’s exchange brought to mind one that I had with both girls several months ago when I dug out my old radio bag-that still had my Marantz tape recorder, microphone, several mic flags and of all things cassette tapes-both of my kids were most fascinated by the rolls of quarters that were still tucked away in there.  “I needed them,” I told them, “to do my work.  Its how a story got on the air quickly.”

“Why didn’t you take out your cell phone?” 8.5 asked me.  A question that cemented the realization that my kids only know a world of the cell phone.

It’s a changed world.  I was talking to another parent at one of my daughter’s softball games the other night-and we were talking about growing up in the late 70’s and early 80’s-when our bikes meant freedom, and we were out the door after breakfast and knew to be home (or at least close by) about the time the street lights flipped on at night.

But that’s not today’s world.  And that’s not what this is about.

Instead, it’s about the icons that we know shift.  Has the iPhone replaced the phone booth?  Remember the scene from one of the Chris Reeve Superman movies, when he was looking for a phone booth to change in, and all he found were the partial phone booths mounted on posts?  It was the start of the modular life.

Dropping 10.5 off at her friend’s house tonight, we were talking about my aversion for electric cars.  I believe they are a feel good green effort rather than a true change.  I’ll buy a flex-fuel car-and look to not put gas into it, I truly hope the gas station my daughter’s know today will be the phone booth of my grandchildren’s world.

Until then though-even in the latter stages of my early 40’s I can remember fondly just a little, right?