Nose for News by Sarah Stultz

 

I celebrated my birthday last week. I’m officially now 35 — that means five more years to go before I reach the big 4-0.

Each year when my birthday rolls around, I can’t say I really feel any older. But then I hear my co-workers gathering photographs for our upcoming graduation section, and I am reminded that this year’s high school seniors were born in 2000 or 2001.

In 2000 and 2001, I was having the time of my life in high school, and then I graduated myself in 2002 and was off to college that fall.

In 2001, gasoline was less than $1.50 a gallon, and a U.S. postage stamp cost only 34 cents.

In 2001, George W. Bush was sworn into office as president of the United States, succeeding Bill Clinton, and later that year the Sept. 11 attacks took place.

It’s mind-blowing to see that the only thing our graduating seniors know about some of these events is what they read out of a textbook — or is it all on a computer program these days?

Where has the time gone?

As I get older in years, I am reminded of the value of recording history for our communities, state and nation.

Times have immensely changed — even in the last 20 years — and if our youth didn’t know any better, they probably wouldn’t believe half the stuff that happened in our days.

With all of the technology we have at our fingertips nowadays, they wouldn’t have much patience for the dial-up internet we had when I was in high school or the old-school Nokia cell phone I had when I was a freshman in college.

Now, you can have access to any website from any location at any time of the day if you have a smartphone.

But with that access also comes the dangers of making sure we, as adults, and our children know what are legitimate, trusted sources and what aren’t.

You can’t believe everything you read online, and at no time has distribution of information — true or false — taken place so quickly.

It is both scary and exciting to see technology grow.

All of that aside, I look forward to seeing where our nation and the world will take  us during the next 35 years.

In the meantime, as I begin the winding down to approach 40, I will continue to believe the popular adage that “40 is the new 30.”

Fasten your seat belts, folks. Ready or not, the changes will keep coming.

Sarah Stultz is the managing editor of the Tribune. Her column appears every Tuesday.