That's becuase our grandparents and greatgrandparents could remember things.

WWII. Rationing. The Dustbowl. The Depression. The first time they saw an airplane. The first time they saw a car. The 1918 flu. Learning to ride becuase it was horseshoes or thier shoes, and money was tight. Radio's being the big media. Getting a refridgerator. Getting electricity. Getting an icebox. Getting the phone. Getting hot water. Getting piped water, if they were terrifically rural. Coaler-fired boilers on steamers.

We've lost too much. If it all broke today, we'd be scavanging the carcass of our modern era until there was nothing, and we had slipped back. Where would we stop sliding? 1400? 1600? 1800? We'd hang onto the ability to make gun powder, but someone would have to reinvent the matchlock probably or there would have to be a lot people who could find flints within a few years; that's assuming we can get the niter and sulfer. We'd hang onto distillation, assuming we could get the grain. But medicine, we'd be back to the dark ages except for the knowledge of sterile = good. Most of would find our educations worthless.

I should have studied something useful. Like exploritory history, the kind when you learn how to weave and smith and ride and everything else that a proper Renissance man would have known.