As a kid I’d walk (my bike tire always had a puncture) up to Kloof’s library and either read Rolling Stone magazine or an Usborne book. My favourites were the Usborne Books of the Future. I’d sit there for hours absorbing the detailed panacea that was life beyond the year 2000. It all seemed so wonderful compared with the day to day reality of living in a small suburb of a despised country. I remember getting mad for being born “too” soon and willed time to run quicker so I could begin enjoying my “Home of the Future”. In it I was promised amongst other things, a giant sized TV (but not thicker than 5cm), the ability to work away from the office using faxes to communicate and a video disk to record TV. Or course all this was powered by “sunshine power” (I guess solar power hadn’t caught on yet). And when I got bored of lounging around the house I could take a spin in a jet powered by liquid hydrogen travelling at mach 3.
And then I’d begin my 30 minute walk home wondering how it would all turn out and what I could do to speed things up. I wanted to be ready. And once I returned home I’d ask,
“Mom, when will we be in the future?”
Should Anyone Ask 