I'll always be in the dark

When I was in high school, we were required to take typewriter instruction classes. This was the school's way of preparing us for the world of technology. I never could type that fast in those classes but when I went away to college, I did use those skills again in my reporting classes. Somehow we believed that when we got out in the working world in 1981 that we would all have typewriters on our desks and be using White Out to correct mistakes forever.

Wrong!

My first time using a computer was at my first job that year. It was pretty intimidating but yet amazing working with that mammoth screen that took up practically the entire desk. I got my exercise having to run to the printer to retrieve my work.

Technology has been on the move big time since that time and frankly, it kind of scares me. What can be next?

It freaks me out the way the internet works now - type in a subject and up pops references to more information than you know what to do with. I rather liked using encyclopedias - the "internet" of yesteryear. I have a set of books that my dad purchased in the 1970s. They still look nice on the book shelf but are never opened.

Cell phones are another piece of technology that most people have now and continually upgrade. I was never going to have a cell phone - I thought it was crazy to carry one; if people wanted to get a hold of me they can call me, was my way of thinking. Now I do have one but a cheap one and I do enjoy the instant messaging referred to texting.

I will forever be a novice wen it comes to technology. Teach an old dog new tricks? Not this old dog; I will beg for treats and roll over and play dead but learning how to program my phone or play on Facebook or do many other things on the computer that come easy to so many people, will probably never happen.

Son Austin gets so annoyed with me when I ask him over and over to help me with the same "problems". That's his duty - being the youngest child and the only one at home. I don't know what I will do when he leaves, too. (I guess go back to typewriters and the old rotary phone.)

I do email people and rather miss getting letters in the mail. I go a card the other day from my best friend and it made me very happy!

I hear other people talking about the wonderful world of iPads and Kindles. These are things I am sure I will never own.

Technology is fine but I don't mind staying in the dark. (the dark makes me sleep better.)