How quaint!

I’ve been reminiscing a lot about the Centennial Olympic Games, held in Atlanta 30 years ago this summer. In looking through photographs and memorabilia from those three glorious weeks, I'm struck by how much has changed over those three decades.

In 1996, about 10 percent of Americans owned mobile phones and most of those folks were executives, life-and-death employees and on-call workers, according to our friend Google, which also did not exist that year. Ditto the pricey laptop, which was used mainly by executives who traveled often for business, and other professionals with money to burn. Wi-Fi didn't exist. As a result, communication while on vacation was dicey.

At the Olympics, there were almost always long lines at pay phones, which were emboldened with the AT&T logo and the Olympic rings. I don’t recall seeing so much as one person with a mobile phone, most of which at the time were the size of a brick and weighed about as much. An early-model flip phone was just being introduced around that time.

Pre-paid phone cards were about as high-tech as we got in 1996!
Photo: Marge Neal

Digital photography wasn’t yet in the mainstream, with early-edition cameras being extremely expensive while offering questionable picture resolution. My internet research tells me digital cameras really took root with consumers in the early- to mid-2000s, and the introduction of the first smart phone in 2007 paved the way for a camera in every pocket.

With that technology history lesson for background, let me tell you of some of my now rather quaint experiences in Atlanta.

And here’s another bit of background information relevant to the story. My Olympic traveling companion, Michelle Park, and I both worked in the field of recreation and parks. She worked for the National Recreation and Parks Association at the time, while I worked for the Baltimore County Department of Recreation and Parks. Anyone familiar with the field knows it’s extremely difficult to take time off during the summer, which tends to be the busiest and most visible season in the profession. To get a week off is highly unusual; three weeks off is unheard of. I requested my vacation time two years in advance because that was the time frame to order tickets. Michelle was granted the time off but took a work-issued laptop with her and agreed to work on a few projects and keep in touch with her office (her job was much more vital than mine).

When Michelle needed to work, we had to go to a Kinko’s office center and pay for internet service. Between pay phone sessions and Kinko’s visits, Michelle was able to keep up with work expectations. We stood in pay phone lines almost daily because that was the only way to keep in touch with folks back home as well as to get some work done.

In the photography department, I lugged three 35mm camera bodies, five lenses and 100 rolls of film with me. I thought it would be better to carry the extra weight of multiple cameras rather than risk damage by changing lenses in crowded situations. I shot roll after roll of film. The original plan was to shoot film there and bring it all back for processing at home. But excitement was hard to contain and several rolls — mainly Opening Ceremony photos — got processed at one-hour processing shops.

Throughout the three weeks, as photos were taken of new friends, we quaintly collected names and mailing addresses and promised to mail duplicate photos after they were processed. When I got home, I mailed the majority of the exposed film off in Clark Photo mailers — remember those? Clark was a discount mail-order film processing company whose mailers were everywhere. I ordered double prints so Michelle and I each got a complete set. A couple weeks after the Olympics ended, Michelle came to my place in Baltimore so we could go through the photos, figure out how many extra copies we needed to mail to folks across the globe, comb through negatives and make a list of all additional copies needed. We mailed a second order to Clark and were thankful for the affordable per-print prices.

When those copies came back in the mail, I sat down, lined up photos with names and addresses and mailed pictures to Idaho, Minnesota, Florida, Georgia, Ohio, Germany, Australia and Lithuania, that I can remember.

I giggle now to think that today, a digital image is created and shared instantly with the world via any number of social media sites, email addresses and text messaging. No processing costs, no money needed for additional copies, no need to squint at hundreds of negatives, no need to buy stamps or address envelopes. And no trip to the post office. Truly unthinkable 30 years ago!

Another technology not in widespread use in the ‘90s was GPS. We made the trip from Arlington, Va., to Atlanta thanks to a AAA TripTik, applied for in advance and received in the mail. It was a turn-by-turn set of directions the thickness of a small paperback! We augmented the TripTik with paper maps, still available for free at most service stations. (There is a rule that once a paper map is unfolded, it can never be refolded as it was originally. It is apparently scientifically impossible.)

When Michelle and I would get inadvertently separated while at venues, the only way to find each other was to physically hunt each other down. Michelle had a habit of leaving seating sections to take smoke breaks and, being the social animal she was, she would strike up a conversation with people she bumped in to along the way, losing track of time. She almost missed the entrance of the U.S. team at the Opening Ceremony because she had been out on a smoke break for more than 30 minutes. As it got closer to the home team’s entrance, I went looking. I found her sitting on a curb, drinking a beer and chatting with a couple she had just met. I let her know the parade of athletes was winding down and she needed to get back to her seat if she wanted to see our guys and gals march in. 

Today, a quick text message would do the trick!

I still think of how much better and more efficient that trip would have been if everyone was carrying a smart phone on their person. In 1996, most of us couldn’t have imagined being able to carry a device in our pockets that was simultaneously a phone, camera, atlas, alarm clock, calendar, calculator, library, television, radio, movie theater and gaming device. Pretty crazy stuff, huh?

To readers under a certain age, I’ve probably made the 1990s sound like the Neanderthal Age.

But it’s my story and I’m sticking with quaint.