@MCDuncanLab

Finally

These days, if you try to call a reference desk at a library... you still can.

I don't know what the point of that anecdote was.

My understanding is that this is the expected behavior of someone my age and I'm trying to blend in. "Back in my day" stories for old people are like stripes on zebras. Confuses predators. They can't pick us out of a crowd.

Tomorrow I'm turning 50 years old.

That's so old that once, when I was a child, I couldn't remember who played David Banner on the Incredible Hulk TV show, so my parents told me to call the library and ask for the reference desk.

The librarian who took the call said "Wasn't it Bill Bixby?" without even having to look a thing up.

So yeah, "the internet" has always been with us, it just used to be other people. I guess it still kinda is. But it used to be, too.