On time
My first contact with a schedule came from the local train station period. There was a chalkboard just outside the station door which listed the arrival and departure and destinations. My father would update it with chalk because these were flexible. With the assurance of a child I had the idea of and a more announcement board clearly in my head. Later, in school I started to read historical fiction and I remember my curiosity about someone climbing into the belfry with lanterns. What was the Lantern? What was a belfry. By land and sea? What about air travel? I learned later that my suppositions we’re flawed. But I still wondered in the case of those lanterns what would have happened if a gust of wind had blown out one of the flames. Would that have changed history? Perhaps that is why we put aside candles and move to batteries but I don’t know. As I move through life I learned that there were many more destinations and many more time slots. Going into a large train station where the board covered a whole wall was an eye opener. The world was much larger than I had assumed. And that was only real travel. Did anyone care about all those cars on the road? Where were they going and when would they arrive? Who had the chalkboard. Seems like a lot of work for someone. Nowadays we simply call up a browser and check things online. Not for real travel or ships but plain still try to keep the schedule. What will life be like in the future? Will we try to schedule things that are visual, like a zoom call? Will a schedule even matter? As you can see the number of questions has not diminished even as I get older. And those train schedules where I learn to read are something from the past.
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