The Electronic Age and Being Old

I need to say, first off, some of the words about the amaryllis got covered by the picture. Don't know what happened. Words you missed are not important.

THE ELECTRONIC AGE AND BEING OLD was written by one of my TOPS members. Aretta
puts out a newsletter every month and she wrote an article about electronics. I have paraphrased it and
want to share it with you. Aretta's title was "Trying to Avoid Becoming A Fossil in the Modern World".
(I am putting this article here to follow my ipad entry).

I can remember that I didn't want a microwave. An acquaintance got one and talked about making fudge and cakes and cooking meat (that was grey because micros didn't brown!) and I thought, "No way". I thought it was a foolish appliance and I would never use it. When sis, Joan, and I bought a house together, she had one and I did use it - to warm up my coffee and heat a TV dinner. When we sold the house and I moved into my cozy apartment I HAD to have a microwave. How could I live without it?
I fought owning a cell phone. Sadly, I got one when Joan became sick. Susi got one and we kept in
touch with reports of Joan's illness. I continued to keep it when my car started acting up. I needed to be able to call AAA or Ron, my car man, when the PT Cruiser died out on me. I did not give my cell phone number to anyone but Rebekah. I don't need to be wired to someone 24/7!
I have mastered the computer, do pretty well with it, although I probably use only 10% of what it can do.
The digital camera came along and I love it. If I didn't have my camera, there would be no blog. The blog was created to send pictures to family and friends who are far away.
"Progress" keeps coming at us at an alarming rate and it is hard to keep up with it. These electronic
gadgets I just talked about came slowly, giving me time to learn how to use them. But I am being bombarded with dozens of new things.
Now there is Facebook, Twitter, Skype, blogs (but I have a handle on that one!), texting and sexting.
E-mail is almost a thing of the past as people turn to Facebook to keep in touch. I stay away from Facebook because I don't want to "friend" everybody and his brother.

I want to say this about Facebook. I have a friend who is a teacher. She was out with a group of friends, having dinner @ a restaurant that serves beer and wine. Someone was ready to take a picture
of the people around the table. My friend moved away from the shot because the table was covered with beer bottles and wine glasses. No one was drunk but there were 10 people gathered there and that
could mean 10-15 beer bottles on the table. My friend had heard of a fellow teacher who had been let go from her job because she was in a pic much like the one I've described and her boss thought she was
not "the kind of employee" he wanted. (IF THAT HAD BEEN MY BOSS I WOULD HAVE HAULED HIS ASS INTO COURT!) My friend was afraid the pic taken of her friends would end up on Facebook. Her friend's picture did end up on Facebook and all believed that's where the boss saw it.

But, to go on with Aretta"s article. The most annoying thing about the 21st century is the inconvenient practice of the way business phones are answered. No more secretaries or telephone operators who
connected you immediately. Now, it takes a long time to get past the computer voice that wants to solve your problem by pushing buttons. And, sadly, many voices are so heavily accented I cannot understand what they are saying and have to repeatedly ask them to speak slower and, with my hearing, LOUDER!!! Sometimes, when you finally get through, a recording tells you, "I am away from my desk or am speaking to another customer. Please leave a detailed message and we will get back to you
ASAP". Sometimes you get a call back the next day and..........sometimes you never hear from them.
These'are Aretta's words They are so dear! I don't long for the good old days when things were slower and there were not so many distractions. I realize that those times would not work well in our fast-paced modern world. But I think if the present deluge of scientific gadgets continue at the current rate, I may have overstayed my time and need to
push on. NOTE: Since writing this some months ago, there is now Kindle, Ipod, Ipad, phones that access your e-mail and take pictures. latest information tells us they are not teaching cursive writing
in the schools anymore. I know I must sound Victorian but I still have love letters tied with a ribbon in
my cedar chest. They were written in a beautiful masculine hand. I am glad they were not text messages! Aretta"