Once upon a time in Ukiah (A short history of our past future)

Because they were fuddyduddies, ignorant of technology and suspicious of New York sharpies mouthing meaningless slogans like “Tomorrow’s Solutions Today!” while wearing fancy Italian suits and $30 yellow neckties, they Just Said No. They being the Ukiah City Council. It was unanimous. They grumbled, frowned, and declined all offers to upgrade citywide communication systems. It was 1981.

Council reps had misgivings about so- called “generous offers” from Time-warner, Adelphia and an outfit from Japan wanting to install Kaypro computers in classrooms, cable TV in houses and high-tech anything to everything else.

City Council was empowered to allow such innovations of course, which meant it was also empowered to disallow them. So disallow them it did.

Thus in the summer of 1981 the city stepped boldly into the past, the future was stalled, and Ukiah stood frozen in time. This was long before anyone had contemplated a floppy disc or software, and everyone still thought “Amazon” was a far off jungle.

This meant that Ukiah, alone in California and the nation, had no internet services or cyber technology. The city existed in a kind of bubble, and there was ongoing griping from younger citizens.

You could see their point. As the years rolled on Ukiah still had no cell phones, no email, no Twitter. Some knew of YouTube and others had tried a Kindle book.

But “streaming” meant something else to them, just like Apple and Chrome and the Cloud had different meanings depending on whether you were inside or outside the Ukiah bubble. Cyber breakthroughs never penetrated Ukiah because there was no broadband, no 3G, no Spotify and no Instagram.

Meanwhile the national media couldn’t get enough of it. Reporters came to gawk and photograph and question this queer tribe of lost souls who didn’t have one measly cell phone among them. Readers in Peoria had a big laugh at articles headlined “The Town that Time Forgot” and “Beam Ukiah Up, Scotty!”

Such stories were everywhere, all about the hicks who sent students off to college without laptops or cell phones. Ukiah kids checked into dorms not knowing an App from a ROM. A local girl was photographed at UCLA carrying a portable typewriter! What next? Cassette decks and a Superman lunchbox?

It made Ukiah a big joke for suave cats like David Letterman and Jay Leno. In response to all the nationwide mockery and complaining from local youngsters, council reps shrugged their shoulders, doubled down and muttered some more. Anyone wanting to search the google box thingie was advised to consider moving to Healdsburg or San Jose. Some did.

Plenty of kids with no interest in college also left Ukiah and decided they liked movies on demand and getting sports scores while watching other games around the clock on a wristwatch screen the size a postage stamp. They lived in Austin or Seattle or Toledo and wallowed in an entertainment ecstasy washing over them 24 / 7.

Which was fine. Youngsters had been leaving Ukiah for a hundred years due to one set of circumstances or another, whether for better pay, better spouses or better public transportation.

But as the years went by a few came back. Yes, they saw advantages in the awesome new digital world, but they saw other things too. They’d watched Toledo friends, heads bowed, working their thumbs and squinting at screens.

Sure it was cool to schedule meetings with a click, attend online seminars in pajamas and watch Hollywood movies in a crowded bus on a teeny screen.

Scrolling down you could check Facebook to see what Paris Hilton had for lunch, or Youtube to watch as people died eating Tide Pods or drinking pool cleanser.

And yet: This is the giant leap forward for civilization? This is a big improvement??

Many wondered, and a few more snuck back home. Then more. They all agreed there were drawbacks to Ukiah not having wifi or google. But there were positives.

By 2021 Ukiah had three daily newspapers, all with robust circulations and page after page of classified ads. There were eight radio stations with live DJS and busy news teams catering to eight overlapping audiences. All the downtown banks employed an abundance of tellers because ATMS were pointless minus satellite communications with banks in Brussels.

No cable TV meant pollution-free news channels. No cell phones meant no microwave towers frightening old hippies in tinfoil helmets. No streaming movies kept the Ukiah Theater’s 10 screens packed.

Without a video game industry, the central library and all six downtown bookstores flourished, and students from Ukiah schools zoomed to the top of state rankings, scoring especially well on literacy tests.

The bowling alley added a second story with 22 lanes; Mac Nab’s Menswear opened a fourth shop, this one in Calpella, and planned a fifth at Coddingtown. In an unexpected turn newcomers began arriving, seeking a tranquil island amid stormy seas.

At first they complained Ukiah was like living among the Amish. Later they sat on downtown benches grumbling about city hall, the Cleveland Indians and whether the Kamala Harris administration would be a curse or a menace. No one checked an app or texted a thing.

And when they died, they died the old-fashioned way: of boredom.