Road warriors

Item #93 on the list of 100 dead or dying technologies, concepts and behaviors that geek dad Nathan Barry published yesterday at Wired.com is “looking out the window during a long drive.”

I should disapprove, I guess, mourn the loss of innocence or something. But my immediate reaction was, “Looking out the window sucks!” I’d have given my left nut for the kind of in-flight entertainment that kids have these days. Flip-down video screens, roaming wi-fi. Hell, I’d have given both nuts for just text messaging in the 1960’s. (Of course, I hadn’t hit puberty yet, so I was perhaps more willing to barter portions of my reproductive system then than I would be a few years later.)

We were accomplished road warriors, my parents and I. Thousands of miles at a stretch. Countless hours spent watching the fruited plains whiz by and me wishing we were there already, wherever there happened to be.