The future, coming to you from the past

Now, I grew up in a very small town about 300 miles north of Vancouver BC.  We had local radio, but it was pretty mainstream for the day, and really didn’t do much to ignite much in the way of imagination.  However, late at night, when the conditions were right, the signal would skip all the way to me and I could listen to the CKNW from Vancouver BC.

When it did come in, quite often what would be on late at night was Jack Cullen’s Owl Prowl.  Jack had an extensive record collection, including an amazing collection of Big Band music (which I still love to this day), and so many of the great radio play series like The Shadow, Dragnet, Green Hornet… the list goes on and on.  I fell in love with these stories, they were tales from a different time, and the stories told in a way that formed in your mind the images that we are now spoon fed by tv and movies.  It is a totally different experience that I hope you will take a few minutes to experience.

One of the things I really enjoy about the internet, is the fact that so many of these great old radio shows are now available online.  It doesn’t take much searching to find an app or website that allows you to access these great tales that are now in the public domain, the copyrights having run their course over the years.

In my exploring, I came across a story from a sci-fi series call X-Minus One.  The story is called “A Logic Named Joe“.  The original tale dates back to March 1946, when it was originally written as a story on paper.  In 1955, it was ‘transcribed for radio’ and presented on X-Minus One.

Now, what is amazing and memorizing to me about this story, remembering it was written within a few short months of the end of WWII, is the amazingly accurate portrayal of where technology in the next 70 years would go.  I am not going to spoil the story, but if you follow the links below, you can start on the three YouTube episodes that comprise this story.

I encourage you to pull up to the kitchen table with a cup of joe, dim the lights, turn off the Idiot Box and take a while to listen to what is an entertaining and indeed amazing story especially when viewed from the future it predicted.

Enjoy!