I was born in 1955, so I was around 40 when the Internet became a thing for everyday people (however, I was very much online before that...BBSs, CompuServe, Qua

I was born in 1955, so I was around 40 when the Internet became a thing for everyday people (however, I was very much online before that...BBSs, CompuServe, QuantumLink, even exchanging email via UUCP). We still have a Thomas Guide on our bookshelf. Just in case Apple Maps goes away. This article doesn't mention carrying around paper planners, pocket calendars or little paper phone books, but Daytimers were a big thing when I was in college, followed by Filofaxes a few years later. For finding things to do, there were community bulletin boards...literally cork boards you could pin a flyer about your event to. They were in grocery stores, coffee shops, etc. And telephone poles in heavily-trafficked areas were often covered with flyers for concerts, lectures, rallies, and babysitting opportunities, among other things. A lot of organizations had phone trees, where a group of people called a few other people, who called a few other people, etc. Churches were (and in many cases still are) major community hubs, not only for members of their congregations but for other community groups that used their facilities. Also, since newspapers were ubiquitous, community calendar columns and classified ads (anyone remember those?) were very common. You got to know people through things you did...school, church, work, neighbors, extended family. There were a lot of fraternal organizations, especially for men, like the Elks and Moose lodges (these really expanded after WW2, and shrank as that generation started to die off). My dad's best friend for decades was the fellow he partnered with in the late 1950s-early 1960s to write one of Boeing's first computerized accounting systems; their kids were almost like cousins to us. The now-lost art of letter writing was a big deal as well. I wrote to a cousin quite a bit, but I also spent time with a girl my age at a state park one summer, and we exchanged letters several times a year for around a decade. Finally, if you were bored standing in line waiting for something...that's what paperback books were for.