An inability to keep up with current technology just makes a person of a certain age seem that much older. Growing up six miles from a town of 2,000 did not help since fads took about five years to reach us and our choices for culture were extremely limited. On good days we could tune in to WOKY in Milwaukee for oldies rock and roll music or WLS in Chicago for the same. Other than that I could always listen to the country station my dad had piped into the milking parlor for the cows to supposedly increase their milk production to. For more sophistication we relied on Lawrence Welk on a Saturday night. We had to drive at least thirty miles for any stores of size, movie theaters and even a McDonald's but such was the life of a country girl. Our ability to keep up with the wider world depended upon newspapers, magazines and television. We knew we were behind the times but there wasn't much we could do about it.
Being late to a party has its drawbacks as I would discover later in college when at the very last minute I decided to show up to a party well underway. I did not have the advantage of knowing exactly what went into the trash can that served as a punch bowl containing a beverage referred to as "agent orange." This should have been a sign. However blurry the events of that night are, the one thing I can remember is standing with a group of people in the middle of a street counting down New-Year's-Eve-style to Groundhog's Day. I would never think of Punxsutawney Phil in quite the same way again.
Maybe some people are just more inclined to investigate the latest gadgets and cannot help but develop an air of superiority when their skills to master new technology start to define their lives. Even so, I did not want to be completely left out so against my better judgment, I finally gave in to joining Facebook. I continue to wonder where this will lead as I've already been taken on some rather interesting adventures. I have received an apology for something that happened in high school by someone I never knew was involved; was contacted by a former bus driver for unknown reasons; and most recently by a man I went to grade school with who is not sure he knows me because of failing memory, eyesight and is possibly in his final days of life. It seems that the question is no longer "why contact someone" but "why not?" Technology has in essence transported me back to the 1970s! What has promised to update me and carry me into this brave new world has instead caused me to remember all kinds of past events and people who shaped my childhood.
So instead of listening to the Beatles on the radio waves across Lake Michigan, I can listen to them on Spotify as I sit here in Greensboro. I can remember the sound of real telephones and the clicking keys of typewriters--a sound that has all but gone extinct in this modern world--by tuning into Mad Men that I can watch through Netflix on my computer. Old pictures can be scanned and shared with classmates who are all over the world. And though I haven't seen or heard from some of the people I went to high school with in several decades, we all seem to be showing up at this online party, late or otherwise.
Being late to a party has its drawbacks as I would discover later in college when at the very last minute I decided to show up to a party well underway. I did not have the advantage of knowing exactly what went into the trash can that served as a punch bowl containing a beverage referred to as "agent orange." This should have been a sign. However blurry the events of that night are, the one thing I can remember is standing with a group of people in the middle of a street counting down New-Year's-Eve-style to Groundhog's Day. I would never think of Punxsutawney Phil in quite the same way again.
Maybe some people are just more inclined to investigate the latest gadgets and cannot help but develop an air of superiority when their skills to master new technology start to define their lives. Even so, I did not want to be completely left out so against my better judgment, I finally gave in to joining Facebook. I continue to wonder where this will lead as I've already been taken on some rather interesting adventures. I have received an apology for something that happened in high school by someone I never knew was involved; was contacted by a former bus driver for unknown reasons; and most recently by a man I went to grade school with who is not sure he knows me because of failing memory, eyesight and is possibly in his final days of life. It seems that the question is no longer "why contact someone" but "why not?" Technology has in essence transported me back to the 1970s! What has promised to update me and carry me into this brave new world has instead caused me to remember all kinds of past events and people who shaped my childhood.
So instead of listening to the Beatles on the radio waves across Lake Michigan, I can listen to them on Spotify as I sit here in Greensboro. I can remember the sound of real telephones and the clicking keys of typewriters--a sound that has all but gone extinct in this modern world--by tuning into Mad Men that I can watch through Netflix on my computer. Old pictures can be scanned and shared with classmates who are all over the world. And though I haven't seen or heard from some of the people I went to high school with in several decades, we all seem to be showing up at this online party, late or otherwise.
