How did we do it? There are days I wonder.

I think about all my years in journalism and wonder how I managed to track down stories and sources without the internet.

Thank you to newspaper “morgues” with news clips from years ago. There was a permanence to them that I don’t feel with online archives. Thank you to libraries, and bless the telephone, the phone book and city directories as well as my personal and sacred collection of phone numbers and addresses built over the years.

People were the ultimate connection. They led to other people. They all had stories to tell. They still do, but now many are slideshows too easily found online. They often don’t seem real. It is still important to knock on doors.

How did we do it? How did we get things done? I’ve heard others ask the same thing, often remembering the map. The road atlas.

We mapped out every trip into strange territory. Advice from others was vital: “Don’t take that fork to the left by the big red barn. You’ll get lost.”

Now, I’m tethered to a talking cellphone, and I miss knowing about that red barn. But alas, I am hooked – plugged into the now world. I’ve crossed the bridge.

The word “bridge” is perfect, and guess where I found it? Yep, online – a Facebook post written by someone calling himself Richard who says he is 74 years old. I have no idea who really wrote the piece, but it’s notable. (Search online: “We are the bridge.”)

Richard exposes the heart that beats within that question: How did we do it?

“I’ve come to realize something about my generation: We are the bridge,” Richard said. “We were born in one world … and grew up in another.

“We lived in a world built on patience. We waited for letters to arrive. We waited for the library to open. We waited for our favorite song to play again on the radio – and when it finally did, it felt like magic. Then, almost overnight, everything changed.”

So true. I remember adults telling me that “patience is a virtue.” Ha. I’d tell new generations that patience is a skill. Speed is king now. Fast is furious.

“We’ve seen milk delivered to the door in glass bottles … and we’ve scanned groceries without speaking to a single cashier,” Richard said. “We’ve dropped coins into pay phones … and we’ve made video calls to loved ones across oceans.”

Yes, we adapt. It’s not always easy.

“Got a problem with your cellphone or that damn remote? Well, you need to find an 11-year-old.”

Bet you’ve heard that before. Richard sees it differently.

“Sometimes, the younger ones look at us like we’re behind,” he said. “But what they don’t see is this: We know both worlds.

“We’ve lived long enough to understand that you can change without losing yourself. That you can honor where you came from while still learning where the world is headed.

“Maybe that’s our greatest gift: the memory of a slower, gentler time, and the courage to adapt to a world that never sits still. We can teach the young that not everything needs to happen instantly. And we can remind our peers that it’s never too late to try something new. Because that’s what we are – the bridge between what was and what will be.

“And as long as we keep standing strong, the world will always have something solid to cross on its way forward. Because every generation builds the road a little further. And ours? Ours remembers both the dirt path and the highway.”

I don’t live in the past. But I visit a lot. How did I do it? Doesn’t matter now. What’s important is I did it. And I’d do it again.

• Lonny Cain, retired managing editor of The Times in Ottawa, also was a reporter for The Herald-News in Joliet in the 1970s. His Paperwork email is lonnyjcain@gmail.com, or mail the NewsTribune, 426 Second St., La Salle IL 61301.