Reflections From a 20th Century Boy

By James Banakis | January 23, 2026

As we close out the first quarter of our 21st century, I sometimes feel like a bewildered visitor from the last century.  I’ve survived the first 25 years of this long, strange trip always struggling to catch on to the next technology. It seems that once I master something it becomes outdated, and every year the obsolescence results in boxes of expensive digital cameras, sound equipment, and an endless sea of charging cables hopelessly tangled together and yes, obsolete.

Those of us who can remember back to New Years Eve 1999, recall it was like few others.  My entire family gathered with our friends and their families at a black-tie affair.  Yes, we wore ties then. Because we were entering into a new millennium, we all had an uneasy optimism. We took photos with cameras with Kodachrome inside. Much like Alice falling down the rabbit hole into Wonderland I felt everything was going to change. I just wasn’t sure how yet. In the story of Alice in Wonderland, Alice experiences deep emotional isolation. She cannot connect meaningfully with Wonderland’s inhabitants because ordinary reason and social interaction rules don’t apply. Welcome to my world, and maybe yours too.

The 21st century began with Steve Jobs returning to Apple and reinventing the failing company that he was banished from. I view this as the beginning of the digital age, and the collapse of interpersonal communication.  People in offices began sending emails to coworkers in the next cubicle instead of simply engaging.   Social media was supposed to be the vehicle to bring us all together. It turned out to be a toilet that harvests our personal information, separates us into camps, and spreads misinformation. Much like all revolutions, it began without fanfare.

It was about that time that FAX machines first appeared. Someone demonstrated feeding a document into the machine and I asked if it would get there by Tuesday. You see I was never on the cutting edge of rapid communication.  I also was still sending FAX documents when everyone else had moved on to something else.

In 2000 only 10 percent of the population had internet. I can recall having a meeting in about 1994 at Lettuce Entertain You about how we needed to prepare for the internet. One of the accountants said we needed an address, i.e. www.lettuceentertainyou.com. I asked if there was going to be a phonebook published with internet addresses. Phonebooks and Yellow Pages were still very important back in 1994, as were public pay phones.  Search engines and Google were unimaginable to people like me at the time.

On September 11, 2001, the massive terror attacks not only created mass perpetual paranoia but ushered in inhumane air travel. Welcome to people traveling in their pajamas with exotic support animals. Back in the 20th century, I remember taking a date to Ohare Airport, having dinner at the Carsons Seven Continents restaurant.  We watched people disembark as we talked about what it would be like to travel to glamorous locales.  Do I dare say that airports use to be romantic.

My lifespan began at the second half of the 20th century. It was a great time to grow up as an American. For most of that 50-year period, the economy was cranking. Getting a higher education was quite affordable, as was home ownership. The only thing that was woke was the snooze button on those pre-digital AM/FM clock radios. Everyone still had landline phones and remembered phone numbers.  Feminism hadn’t entered its self-destructive phase. Medical insurance was still affordable. I remember cars being beautiful. They were easy to repair, and fun to drive.  I fear in the future they’ll only be fleets of grey, self-driving Ubers.

One of the things I miss about those 50 years was that not a lot divided us. Politicians were outwardly polite to each other. Remember, even Bill Clinton ran on a law & order platform. He favored enforcing immigration laws.  Both Mayor Daley’s kept the city clean, safe and the old one reminded us, “The policeman isn’t there to create disorder, the policeman is there to preserve disorder.” We all knew what he meant.  He reminded me of my own father whose syntax became twisted when he got agitated. Most importantly we had fully functioning police and judges prosecuted criminals.

There has always been a nostalgia for simpler times, but I can’t remember my parents and grandparents wanting to return to World Wars or the Great Depression. The second half of the 20th century was special, with stronger community, better music, funny comedians, epic movies, and less distraction. There was a sense of being present with people. Kids played outside and there was deeper in person socializing. I personally enjoyed being able to vanish if I wanted to and not be tracked by cell phones and security cameras. Dating was an agreeable social institution. Friends fixed up friends with friends. Real people not computerized dating sites and express date lunches.

Much as I personally miss the last half of the 20th century, I know that soda fountains, dive-in movies, used bookstores, Marshall Field’s, and Sunday afternoon double headers are gone forever.

The thing I miss the most is corresponding with long, handwritten letters. You might think this odd, but there was something enchanting and intimate about going through my mail and reading and sending letters. That’s because we didn’t have 24/7 instant communication. Long distance phone calls were expensive and needed to be brief.  Good letter writers always told you what prompted them to write. There were those few days anticipation of waiting for a reply.

Letters were kept in a safe place and could be read again. There was a ritual ceremony as you studied the envelope, sat down in a relaxing place. Reading a letter was almost as if you heard the persons voice as was exhibited in old movies when someone silently reads and the writer’s voice is heard on the soundtrack. Enduring memories of saved love letters evoking the same longing 50 years hence could never occur with email.

About 8 years ago I attended a lecture by historian David McCullough discussing his book, The Wright Brothers. McCullough explained to the audience that a major part of his historical research was archived personal letters. If you’ve never read his biography on John Adams, the correspondence between John Adams and his wife Abigail is astonishingly insightful and tender.

After, McCullough took questions, and I asked him what historians of the future were going to do without access to personal letters, as they no longer exist. McCullough agreed that it would severely hamper future biographers. He joked that emails had become incriminating instruments in court cases, and therefore usually bland and ultimately deleted.  He remarked that schools have stopped teaching cursive thereby dumbing down our cognitive skills.

As we all enter the second quadrant of this century, we need to improve building genuine connections with each other. Technology offers convenience and speed, but we lose face to face contact. More than ever, we will need clear writing, empathy, and effective listening to maintain solid personal and professional connections.

Much like the late Brian Wilson told us from his epic 1966 album, Pet Sounds, “I guess I just wasn’t made for these times.” This 20th century boy has a longing for less digital distraction.  I have a longing for a time of shared purpose.  When people physically gather, in a virtuous sense, good things happen.  There is something wistful about the entire country in the 1960’s committing itself of going to the moon and back on less computer power than exists in a single iPhone 11.

One thing is certain; cell phones and social media like all technology soon will be obsolete. Artificial Intelligence is as inevitable as electricity was at the Chicago World’s Fair in 1893. Like it or not just step aside because it’s what will power at least the next 25 years. I shudder to think what bleak type of communication it conceives. Finally, I think I’ll let another 20th century boy leave us with these words of wisdom.

Technology can be our best friend, and technology can also be the biggest party pooper of our lives. It interrupts our own story, interrupts our ability to have a thought or a daydream, to imagine something wonderful, because we’re too busy bridging the walk from the cafeteria back to the office on the cell phone.

– Steven Spielberg

-30-

Jimmy Banakis is a life-long restaurateur.  He was an honorary batboy for the White Sox in 1964. He attended Oak Park River Forest High School, Nebraska Wesleyan University, and Chicago-Kent Law School.  He claims the kitchen is the room he’s most comfortable in anywhere in the world. He published an extremely limited-edition family cookbook. He’s a father and grandfather, and lives in Downers Grove Il.

Comments 39

  1. How sad the World has become. Everything is about AI and they do not care about the Seniors or mature adults. It is all about they young that have no clue about life or how to work and it Saddened me that Parents have allowed all this nonsense to go on. What Happened to RESPECT AND MAMMNERS. TEACHING OUR YOUNG ABOUT GOD AND THE TRUTH Learning and reading. Social Media has ruined our youth and the Parents go along with it. Sad.

  2. This is a very good piece Mr. B. If all of this technology is hampering our quality of life, inhibiting the growth of personal relationships, and kids can’t write, do math, or think for themselves anymore, why can’t we change it?

    This is what I’ve noticed these last few years. Elites who control the levers of government, high finance, Education, Health Care, don’t care if 70% of the people agree, or not. They’re going to maximize their equity and their profit, the public good be damned.

    It explains the Congress, Trump, the oligarchs. This explains people like Pritzker. I still can’t believe this guy has been elected twice.

    Tech, like Twitter, FB, Tik Tock, helps further divide us. Putting us in camps. I’m shocked and disappointed at how easy it is to cherry pick or skew facts to create a narrative, and how easy it is for leaders to sick and angry online mob at a threat and also how cowardly our institutions behave and wreck careers, lives even, in a heartbeat.

    All of our leaders, the Congress, Judiciary, Finance, the oligarchs, they all go to the same schools, they all belong to the same clubs. Trump and the Clintons yukked it up at countless balls, parties, functions.

    It’s a private club, and we ain’t in it.

  3. Icebox and Wall Phones and Long-Johns in Winter,
    Streetcars and Green Stamps and Liver for dinner,
    Shovel the sidewalk for widows and cripples,

    Transfer all Tokens when taking the Bus,
    These are just memories from Old Guys like us . . .

  4. Thank you for writing such a wonderful column. It’s poetic. Helps me to understand why it’s harder to connect with the next generation, many of whom I love. And, as a child, I remember writing letters to the soldiers in Viet Nam from our neighborhood.

  5. A visit to O’Hare WAS romantic… and permitted.

    A “fleets of grey self driving Ubers.” I can attest. The last 3 months I’ve had a window overlooking a 70 car, hotel parking lot. Unofficial automobile color survey: 30% black, 30% white, 30% grey/silver and 10% other.

    The pleasure of re2ding and writing from friends. While I’m composing a short personal email I’m frustrated, knowing the person reading it will misread with speed and reply with even less care.

    David McCullough’s, The Wright Brothers. I love this book. Then why haven’t I finished reading it after reading 80% of it over a year ago? I know it doesn’t make sense, but I like it so much I enjoy being in its uncompleted midst.
    McCullough remarked they stopped teaching cursive, dumbing down our cognitive skills. Gen Z can’t write cursive, they only speak it.

    Beach Boys, Pet Sounds was released in 1966? I still find it hard to believe that beautiful of an album could have been created in the mid 1960’s. You’re right. It was.

    “Feminism hadn’t entered its self destructive phase.” Well put. Phases one and two, needed. Third wave was a tidal 9 on the wreckter scale.

    While they were running things, I detested both Mayor Daley’s. Oh how I wish we could AI them into running Chicago for another 40 years.

    Great, thought provoking column Jimmy.

  7. I can identify with this article; however, for Zoomers and most Millennials THESE are the good old days! Trust me on this, I teach them.
    I spend tons of time explaining to them the physical limitations of the world 3000, 1000, 500, 100, and even 50 years ago. Change is the nature of the universe, but the pace of change has accelerated dramatically in the last 200 years. Think of it, 5,000 years to powered flight, then only 60+ to the moon!

  8. Ironic how technologies that were supposed to bring us together have instead created a fissure that I don’t think will ever heal.

    Tech is like alcohol; not necessarily a bad product, but one that can be used badly.

  12. Outstanding column Mr. B. It scares the hell out of me to wonder what humans will be like 50 years hence when AI does all their thinking for them. Will there be more great music, novels and start up enterprises? I don’t think so because those things take time alone to think and wonder. How scary.

  13. Well done Mr B. Like stated before excellent piece. I remember taking a date to ORD and saving up $ to buy two “flightseeing” tickets ($25 ea) on AA for a Saturday sunset flight around Chicago. I remember the “city that worked” under the Daleys and even Harold Washington. Compared to our last two mopes, at least he knew a thing or two. Music better, cars cooler and girls prettier. I miss the time. I remember when my dad told me I’d be needing a FAX machine for my professional practice. (HUH? Why would I EVER?? ) or that OSHA (oh s*it) was the beginning of all kinds of nanny state regulations. 58 years after my BS, nearly 50 since my professional degree and practice, I look back and wonder where the time went. It indeed is like Orwell said “a brave new world!”

  15. I remember first hearing about you in a Kass. Column.
    Being “bred and buttered” on “da sot” side, I dismissed you as just another “Greek with a restaurant”.
    What a dolt I was/am.
    Your insights are …………..borderline profound……..and very thought provoking.
    Thank you.
    Please forgive me for being a judgmental jerk.
    I hope that you continue to share your thoughts, and more often.

  16. I was flying out of O’Hare early one morning. The entire terminal was silent. An almost church like silence. Nearly EVERYONE was entranced, engulfed, holding a cellphone to their face. I thought,
    ” ..they’re spending time with their New God..”.

    1. Ah, Enrique, you have hit the nail squarely on the head! Cell phone tech has become a type of idol for many. I grabs our attention and distracts so easily from reality. It trains to react versus think.

  19. Nicely done! Too many great points to mention. Probably the best time to be alive in our country was the late 50’s into the early 60’s. Certainly, Chicago reached its zenith during this time under Daley I and was without question America’s Second City.
    What happened after that? Certainly, lots of things. But one thing that stands out, was Johnson F..ing up Vietnam. We were never the same again.

  20. Now you can use Anthropic’s Claude AI app to manage finances, keep you abreast of things, pay your parking tickets and bills and do everything for you as an AI agent. Someday soon, robots will do a lot of work for us in commodity jobs. You will be able to rent them, and pay for it using cryptocurrency. You will be able to own your car, and when you are not using it turn it into a taxi and earn money. It will be driverless, and park itself in your garage over a wireless charger powered by NuCurrent.com (no plug necessary). Farmers will be able to farm from a computer, with robots and driverless tractors doing all the work.

  21. Mr. Banakis,…you encapsulated the 2nd half of the 20th century so beautifully and concisely. As I was reading your column,…it was like watching one home run after another being knocked out of Wrigley Field by Ernie Banks. Totally spot on,…on all points.
    What’s sad what is not seen any more, kids playing baseball or football after school. Or riding bikes in the neighborhood or over to a friend’s house. We all know how they’re using their spare time today :^)

    You ARE the Ernie Banks of the column! Thank you.

    1. Brad,
      I grew up around Midway airport in the late 50s early 60s. There were kids all over the place. Yes, too many are holed-up inside the house playing video games these days but there’s another reason the kids are gone, abortion.

  22. Great column. I come from the same era as you, so I can identify. I use technology, but I say no to texting and using a cell phone for anything other than talking on. My Mom is 95 and still aware of the world. I sometimes wonder how she feels about all this. I don’t miss ties, though!

  24. I appreciate your thoughts Mr. Banakis. There is hope. My 9 year old grandaughter thanked my mother by way of mailed, handwritten letter for a gift she had received – all on her own. Of course that thank you note has been taped to the fridge door where great grandmom proudly displays for all to see, including my granddaughter.

  26. One of the unexpected joys of returning to the church after a long absence in early adulthood has been the social interaction with people without the curtain (crutch?) of technology getting in the way of friendship and fellowship.

  27. Mr. Banakis,

    This column, among your others, jostled my memory of growing up in LaGrange during the “60’s. A time of bikes, kickball, tree climbing, fort making, home before the street lights came on and earning my first few dollars. But most of all my Mother and Father’s parental nourishment and guidance. It flows like a Grandmothers recipe- reflective, sweet and delicious.

    Jon

  28. You have written what I have been saying for years. I had a golden childhood…born at St Ann’s Hospital (gone now) moved to the ‘burbs at 4…grew up in Wheaton with tree forts, fields, home when the street lights went on. I could go on but I feel you have said it for me. We live in interesting times…which is a Chinese curse.
    Sigh,
    Marianne

  29. Add Covid, Xbox and cell phones to the age of technology and you have a generation that can’t communicate. I see it at work all the time, no social skills, no eye contact, just an aimless walk down the hallways as you pass each other like strangers.

    It wasn’t like that years ago, but I view cell phones as the biggest contributor to this new age of impersonal communication.

  30. Jimmy,
    I too long for those “good old days” now and then. But I must say, I got caught up in the convenience and unlimited expanse of the internet as it became my “go-to” instead of a thesaurus, dictionary, or newspaper. It was just so easy to click-click, and voila – everything at your fingertips. But social media access to everyone, anyone, anywhere in the world, led us to this incredible point of no return! We are able to hate, threaten, cajole, without consequence, as these perps hide behind the veil of personal security. As you so astutely put it “It turned out to be a toilet that harvests our personal information, separates us into camps, and spreads misinformation. Much like all revolutions, it began without fanfare.” With any luck, social media will burst its seams and explode, as more and more users insist on posting diatribes, threats of violence, simple nonsense or BS, and obvious misinformation. It can’t die too quickly in my opinion….however, what’s coming down the road to supplant it? AI? Or? God help us….let us pray! As we say in our mother tongue – “theos filaxi!”

  31. Wonderful piece, Mr. Banakis!

    The upside of all of these changes? This East Coaster found John Kass on the Internet. It gives me his great writing, along with you and others.

    Take care and keep up the great work!

    Rob

  32. I was born in 1953 and spent most of my boyhood growing up around Midway airport so I know what Mr Banakis is talking about. My teen years were spent in Oak Lawn. I still have a landline because my 97 year old mother lives with me. I’m wondering how it would go if I get rid of my cell phone, shut off the internet, and maybe even throw away the cable TV. The news on TV is consistently essentially fundamentally depressing. I think cell phones are killing us. I think the judges are no good. The judges are worse than cell phones though because it is they who ordered God out of the schools but force us to pay for them anyway. The result is a populace without any meaningful knowledge of God, His laws, His grace, or their sin. Anyone with a brainstem starts to wonder what it’s all about. When they can’t find an answer they give up looking for one. So they submerge themselves in mindless entertainment, pounding “music” that prevents thinking, or they escape through drugs or they just keep searching for hope on their cell phones and the internet. Next time you go to a restaurant look around. About half the people will be fingering their phones instead of talking to other human beings at the same table. Electronics is making us sick because it does not unite, it separates. It almost forces us to live alone. No personal interaction allowed or even possible. I actually wish I could go back in time and join the Raccoon Club along with Ralph Kramden and Ed Norton, a friendly place, a place just for guys to play pool, tell jokes, laugh and have a good time with other men. Good clean fun. No women allowed. I’m old fashioned. I believe, actually I know, there are only two sexes. If you believe otherwise you are nuts. I believe men and women have different roles because they are fundamentally different. My church is a wonderful place. There’s fellowship there but it’s a place for worshipping God with other Christians, not tell jokes and laugh and have a beer. It shouldn’t be. Maybe it is time to rethink how things should be, how to get back together with friends without the distraction of cell phones, to get back to living a truly human existence, and how to listen to the voice of God again.

Leave a Reply