Weekend-Engagement-WEEK 141: Encyclopaedias, cassettes and public telephones remind me of my youth.

From the time I learned to read at a very early age the world opened up before my eyes. I would browse and read as many books as I could, often being scolded because they were not suitable for my age.

An uncle-in-law had a large library with many books in his house, but in it stood out some very elegant ones, different from the rest, lined with shiny material, or with a cover of excellent quality paper. I asked him why they were different from the other books, and he told me: those are encyclopaedias, there you will find a lot of information about the world and its people.

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He invited me to leaf through one of those books, and when I opened it I began to see very colourful pictures, with information related to what was shown in the picture. I began to read, and realised that they were describing the seven wonders of the world: the Great Wall of China, the ruins of Chichen Itza (Mexico), Petra (Jordan) and Machu Picchu (Peru), the statue of Christ the Redeemer (Brazil), the Colosseum in Rome (Italy) and the Taj Mahal (India).

I continued with my curiosity and found great discoveries such as wild animals that I had never seen, languages that I didn't even know existed, film genres to know, different types of religions, typical dishes of each country and many other things.

I loved going to my uncle's house to do my school activities, because in those books I found the answers to all my homework, my favourite encyclopaedias being the Encyclopaedia Britannica and the Salvat Encyclopaedia. In these books I found a source of knowledge that is invaluable today.

Although for many it was torture, for me it was a pleasure to browse through the index of these books and discover new topics to read about.

Time passed and Google and Wikipedia came along, making access to information much easier and simpler as you search for exactly what you are interested in.

Encyclopaedias have become superfluous and obsolete thanks to technology, and some of them have even started to be published in CD and DVD format, which can be viewed on the computer.

For me, the experience of consulting these encyclopaedias was incomparable, although nowadays the information is constantly updated, something that did not happen with the encyclopaedias.

Nowadays, if we ask a teenager what a cassette is, they have no idea what we are talking about. In the 70s and 80s, these magnetic tapes were in vogue and in many cases they were cheaper than buying a record.

Through this format I got to know rock, a brother of a fellow student gave me recordings of progressive rock records, but I had to buy the blank cassette, being very used the brands TDK, Sony, Philips, and Ampex.

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In the record shops, there were spaces set aside only for the sale of cassettes, in all styles. These were played on car cassette players and home tape recorders until the arrival of a portable device that also fell into obsolescence: the Walkman.

The cassette has two pairs of stereo tracks, one on each side, the A side was played, the tape ended and the B side was played.

More than once I had to disassemble these cassettes as they broke from use and I had to repair them with adhesive tape, the cassette in many cases got tangled in the cassette deck and the heads of these devices always got dirty and I had to clean them with cotton wool and alcohol.

If a cassette was recorded and the record was in bad condition or dirty, these imperfections damaged the quality of the music.

It was quite a ritual to record the music, I would choose the songs I wanted to listen to from different artists, but I had to choose a particular track and be very aware of when it was finished and pause it, because if I didn't, the beginning of the next song would be left on the cassette and I would have to record again from the beginning. It would easily take me three to four hours to record the music.

The use of the cassette has been strongly displaced by digital media such as iPods, CDs and the music available on Deezer, Spotify and other digital platforms where each of us can create our own playlist.

In addition, most stereos no longer have a tape player, being replaced by a USB port where music can be played through a Pen Drive.
The Pen Drive is the true substitute for a cassette.

When I was old enough to go out alone, I usually went to a fast food restaurant with my friends or to the cinema, and at home they made it a rule that I always called when I arrived or left the place where I would visit.

For this I had to have a lot of coins, since this activity was done through a public telephone. I would insert the coin, wait for it to ring and dial my home number, leaving my family at ease and, as long as I told the truth, they would know where I was.

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These phones often gave me back the coin or I was rewarded with a larger amount of coins when I got out of a slot.

I remember queuing for up to fifteen minutes, as there was always a reckless person who was chained to the payphone and would not let go, and if I said something to him he would get annoyed.

Later these public telephones were modernised and, given the scarcity of coins in my country Venezuela, magnetic cards were used. Little by little, I saw how vandals damaged these phones for the simple pleasure of destroying them or because coins were stored inside them.

Then came the era of mobile phones and these public telephones became obsolete and it is no longer necessary to have a coin phone when you have one in your pocket.

How many memories have come back to my mind when developing this publication. A big hello to the whole community and thanks to @galenkp for proposing the initiative Weekend-Engagement: WEEK 141 Link Here, being this proposal the one chosen by me:

Redundant

Name three things, (items or services) that have become redundant in modern society but you miss having around or would have liked to experience for yourself when they were popular. Tell us what you miss about them, or what you would have liked about them and why, in a post of 300+ words.

Have a nice weekend!