The year is 2195. Mrs. Jones escorted her ninth-grade class into the American Human History Museum where a guide greeted them.

“Students, today we’re going to go back in time to the 20th century. I will be showing you rooms filled with things that the American family found common to their lifestyles then, objects of both necessity and recreation that are no longer needed today.”

He led them to the first room, which was filled with folded papers of some kind.

“Here we have what were called newspapers. They were delivered to homes by paperboys on bicycles or by drivers in cars that traveled on ground roads. On the back wall is a front page of the Times News from Lehighton, Pennsylvania. Notice the large headline about a community person who raised money for cancer research.”

“How do you read a newspaper?” asked Johnny. “It looks difficult.”

“You pick it up and you open it with both hands, and you turn the paper pages with a flick of the thumb.”

“What a bother,” said Lori. “Alexa 2100 tells us the news every day and we don’t have to do anything. Easy-peasy.”

“What did they do with newspapers after they read them?” asked Michael.

“There were several purposes. You could use it to start a fire in the fireplace or put under something to catch a spill, or if you had anew puppy, you could lay it on the floor for him to do his business on.”

They moved on to the next room. “Here we have what were called books. People back then would take a book and read it page by page. The stories would take their imaginations into time periods and different worlds they did not go to by travel.”

“Seems like a waste of time,” said Billy. “We can go anywhere we want in just a few minutes. These people would have wanted to be living like us if they knew what we had instead of reading books.”

The next room was filled with objects that had strange shapes. “These are what were called telephones,” said the guide. “One end of the phone has a wire. You talk through this end. You had to dial numbers to call someone.”

Lucy looked at Mera. “And we thought cellphones were too much effort. I’m glad we have these tiny devices planted under our skin. Just say the name you’re calling out loud and you have instant conversation.”

In the next room were shiny black discs. The guide picked one up, placed it on a turntable, dropped an arm and music began to play. “This is a record on a record player.”

“What do you think? asked Mrs. Jones. “Doesn’t that seem like fun?”

Sally shouted out. “I can play 40 more songs in five minutes while that thing that can only play one!”

Tommy said, “Hear the scratches in the music? I just have to think of any song and it plays right to my ears. I say the word ‘public’ and the sound goes into the room like I’m out at a live concert.”

The next room was filled with televisions, plugged in and working.

“Look at the one with the black and white movie,” said Timothy. “The picture rolls up and down every 10 seconds. Why bother at all?”

“Thank God we have 5D TV at home,” said Caroline. “Yesterday, I watched a monster movie. I got too close, so I went behind it until I got scared and I ran out of the room.”

The students found a room filled with contraptions with two wheels. “These are the bicycles kids rode in their travels in 20th and later centuries,” said the guide. “Notice the foot pedals. They had to pump their legs to make the bike move, not like what we have now with designated lanes in the sky where we can fly our bikes.”

“They must not have been smart enough to invent our conveniences, so they had to work to do anything,” said Ronald.

“I don’t want to have to work to hear my music or have to strain my eyes to see a movie inside a 14-inch screen,” said Kate. “The whole tour was boring.”

“Makes me appreciate what we have more than I did before,” said Sam.

“Here’s our last room,” said the guide. “We thought you might like to interact a little with the lifestyle of a time period in the 20th century.

“We’re giving you a summer day. Each of you will be 12 years old.”

Suddenly, the students vaporized and reappeared in Anytown, USA. It was a warm day. The clock on the bank read, June 15th, 1964. They found themselves pushing their legs and riding bikes, bike riding up and down the street. They arrived at a construction site. They jumped off their bikes and walked the boards to explore the half-finished house.

Sometime later, after climbing two trees, they came down and built a fort in the woods. Stopping at the sandlot field, they were joined by other kids to play a baseball game. As the night sky fell, they bought ice cream from a truck with a few coins that mysteriously showed up in their pockets.

As they left the museum, Grace asked Michael, “Did you have fun when we went there?

He looked at her and said, “My legs hurt from pedaling the bike. My arms are scratched from climbing the tree. My knee was scraped on a nail at the house, and when we played at the sandlot, the ball bounced up and hit me in the chin.”

He smiled. “I had a great time. Let’s go home and build a fort!”

“Let’s hope there’s still some woods left around us. I haven’t seen a real tree since they installed those big pumps that produce the air we breathe,” said Grace.

“If we can’t find a tree, maybe we can climb the pumps,” said Michael.

Grace just shook her head. “Let’s just order a tall fake tree from Amazon.”

Email Rich Strack at richiesadie11@gmail.com