Things that people will never experience

There is a list that comes out every fall that is put out by Beloit College. The whole purpose of the list is to remind the increasingly older faculty and administration about all the things that the new freshman class of mostly 18 year olds have never experienced. So how do you explain a dial phone to students who always have thought that phones have buttons? Once I had to explain what an LP record was (I didn't even try to tell them what a 45 was) but increasingly, I have to explain what a CD is. Floppy disk drives? An 8088 processor? A young Harrison Ford? Eight track tapes? Water out of the fountain or bubbler? Watergate? No TV changer? Books? Forget it--they rarely if ever have experienced or remember them or know at all about them. Worse, many of their parents don't remember them either!!!

I had one such moment today, and it made me very reflective. I went to the last Harry Potter movie and while it won't win any academy awards, it was a monumental movie for me. I read the first Harry book in England in 1998, a year or two before the craze began in the US, and for the last 13 years, another Harry Potter book or movie was always going to come out. For the last 13 years, most of the world was anticipating another installment of one kind or another. That is pretty amazing when you think about it--Ms. Rowlings has earned her billion or two.

What made me more reflective is that I can almost define my life for the last 13 years by which book or movie was coming out or in the theater. Who did I share my book with or who did I go to a movie with? Who did I make reluctantly watch the first five movies so we could at least talk the same language? What college was I teaching at? Which book was I reading when my divorce was final? Who did I send a book to, or who did I share a Red Vine or two with while watching the movie? Where in the country was I living? Who thought I was crazy when I brought back Harry Potter books from those summer trips to England?

I suspect and sometimes hope I am a grown up, and I even think that I have been one for a few years. But much of my growing up years have been with Harry Potter, a point that I bet that more people than me can say. I just grew up later than most. But they (and Harry) have shared my first international travel, periods of loneliness and togetherness, and for these past 13 years, have always been something that I have anticipated. It will be a bit different to not do that, to not anticipate the next Harry Potter. I know that continuing progress on this growing up thing will be made, but what literary or culture icon will help mark and define the next 13 years?