My days are tortured with the pull of my computers, and yet I’ve located every area of my life where I need more. In the car, the shower, a special glow in the dark keyboard right by the bed at night, at my father’s where he’s intrigued but still too frightened by it to switch it on—or even plug it in. Old folks worry most about how much electricity these contraptions use. Check your parents’ houses; see how many things are left unplugged. Forensics can find the dusty residue of pills on one particular knife in any kitchen of the elderly, unless they’ve boldly spent two dollars on the tablet cutter. The cost of all those medications being pushed by doctors drives people to ingenuity—the 7-day pillbox is strangely arranged with the prescribed daily pink pills filling only the Sunday, Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday compartments, or money spent on a quarterly bus ride to our Canadian neighbors. But that’s another story…
Why do creative moments strike at inconvenient times? I must look into wireless networking more seriously. I have this image now of myself in forty years–wrinkled, white-haired and little, lying in a sterile hospital bed hooked up to what look like all the normal hospital machines. But then you’ll see my fingers moving just so slightly, and look up to see on one of those screens, “Once upon a time…”
The Lost Children: A Charity Anthology
I’m forever getting calls from my 83 year-old grandfather to “fix” his computer. He’s had the same one for six years now. AMD-K6 with 64 MB of RAM. I’m very pround of him, however, as he recently participated in (and won) a “Fantasy Jai-Alai” league.
It still amazes him, though. The other day I showed him my camera phone and how moblogging works. Then he had to take a nap.
I had to laugh; that’s just so cute. It’s amazing how many of the older folks are learning and enjoying computers these days. It opens up the world for them, especially when they live alone and don’t get out that much. Especially big with them is the e-mail, so they can keep in touch with friends and family and stare wide-eyed at the photo of the latest grandchild. And, the best part of all, they save the thirty-seven cents’cost of a stamp. I think that had I gotten the computer in to my dad’s hands a little sooner he might have been more willing to learn, because he’s always fascinated by watching how it works. But he had a rough few years with my mom before she died, and it’s taken him a while to get back on track. In less than three weeks he’ll be 92!