Ask anyone who was around in the 1950s and ’60s — by the year 2000 we were all supposed to be whizzing around in our own personal spaceships like George Jetson.

And don’t be telling me you don’t remember "The Jetsons." You probably wouldn’t admit it, but you can still recall the opening theme song:

Meet George Jetson,

His boy Elroy,

Daughter Judy,

Jane, his wife

That was the whole song. OK, so it wasn’t Cole Porter or Irving Berlin, but it somehow stuck in your brain.

And I have to admit it after all these years: I had a thing for Judy Jetson.

It’s not as if I didn’t know there would be bumps in the road to our eternal romance. I was a mere teenager and she was a cartoon character, but don’t all couples have some difficulties?

I figured that someday when we were older we would marry, inherit portly Rosie the robot, and I would go to work for Spacely Sprockets.

Somehow, it didn’t turn out that way.

It’s not as if there aren’t wonders to behold in our daily lives. Nobody, with the possible exception of Al Gore, thought there was going to be something called the Internet that would so dominate our lives.

Computers are everywhere, helping us get through supermarket lines quicker and making it unnecessary for any kid to ever have to learn the multiplication tables.

Omnipresent cell phones are certainly convenient, but they aren’t all that impressive to anyone who saw Dick Tracy’s two-way wristwatch radio in the Sunday newspaper comics 50 or more years ago.

Which brings me to what’s really bothering me about this still-new century. I keep hearing people saying it won’t be long before nobody is sitting around on a weekend and looking at the newspaper comics page.

Or, an even more horrible prospect: No one will be gazing at the prose created by weekend newspaper columnists, who are the very salt of the earth.

The scary thing is that many of the people making those terrible predictions work for newspapers.

Large newspaper chains hire firms that charge exorbitant fees to create intricate charts that can be shown on a big screen by way of a laptop computer.

The charts reveal that more older people than younger people read newspapers.

Well, no kidding, Sherlock.

It stands to reason, these "experts" say, that when the old people die out, no one will be around to buy newspapers. That will mean advertisers won’t want to buy ads and ... and ... oh my goodness, what are we gonna do? WHAT ... ARE ... WE ... GONNA ... DO!

Well, the first thing we’re gonna do is get ahold of ourselves.

People have been predicting the demise of newspapers ever since Marconi warmed up his radio tubes.

First, it was the immediacy of radio news that was going to drive newspapers out of business.

Then, it was television.

Now, it’s the Internet, with thousands and thousands of sources for information about just about anything.

Some of it is even accurate, especially if it is a newspaper website.

The great minds who run our newspapers decided that, by gum, we had better get in on this Internet craze and provide our product on-line for free.

Sometime, somebody is going to have to explain to me why that is such a good idea for those whose business it is to sell newspapers.

The great minds have also been busy trying to make certain the exorbitant profits newspapers make continue to show up on this year’s books even if low quality affects future profitability and even viability.

They’re doing this by offering buyouts to employees or laying people off.

Just in the last week or two, The New York Times, Boston Globe (owned by the Times) Philadelphia Inquirer and Daily News and Los Angeles Times, among others, have endured cuts in personnel, and of course, quality.

Thankfully, the newspaper you’re reading hasn’t followed suit, and there are still bastions of newspaper management intelligence.

Personally, I’m not nearly as gloomy as some of my colleagues about the future of newspapers. There’s something about having your name in a newspaper that connotes importance unavailable anywhere else.

And, of course, a newspaper is a lot more handy than a computer if your goal is to find something with which to wrap a fish ... or train a puppy ... or line a bird cage.

I also happen to have more faith in young people than most of my counterparts appear to have. The "experts" have created dumbed-down versions of their newspapers that they hope will appeal to what they perceive as tiny, young attention spans.

Young people aren’t stupid, and older people have been wrong time after time after time.

We’re not folding our cars up in a suitcase like George Jetson did. And I for one am not ready to fold up our tents when it comes to newspapers.

I believe the daily printed word will be around for a very long time. Let’s all get together 100 years from now and see if I’m right.

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Sam Pollak is editor of The Daily Star. He can be reached at spollak@thedailystar.com or at (607) 432-1000, ext. 208.