Feeling Less Than ... Able?

My dad--who died on Nov. 30, 1999--did not keep up with the technology of his age. Although my mom had owned and used an early Apple computer (and would later use more advanced computers + a cell phone), Dad's technological savvy pretty much ended with the TV remote, a great gift to him since he, in his later years, was barely mobile.

Dad never used an ATM, never even pumped his own gas.

My late friend and teaching colleague of fifty years Andy Kmetz had the similar attitudes of a techie Luddite. He could use a cassette tape player/recorder; that was about it. In his later years, I tried to get him to buy a smart phone, to get on Facebook, where he could have hooked up with the thousands of former students who loved him, but he was impossible to convince. (He even used some coarse language!)

I have tried to keep up as the years have flowed along. Computers. Smart phones. Digital projectors. Video streaming. Facebook. Etc.

But last night Joyce and I went out to a phone store, where I got a new smart phone, a device that has, over the past hours since I've owned it, proved itself smarter than I. Just a few minutes ago, for example, I finally got back on Google and Gmail (and Blogspot!) after hours of frustrating password changes, verification codes, warnings that I might not be who I say I am, etc. I was about ready to hurl the thing through the window in my study.

But then ... things got worse ... Reaching into my backpack for my Kindle (needed to change the Google/Gmail password), I caught my hand on something, and before I'd really noticed, blood was flowing from the back of my hand and onto the thigh of my jeans. I soon looked like Charles Manson after you-know-what.

And so I did what all "mature" men do: I wept.

Made me think of that great Shel Silverstein poem "The Little Boy and the Old Man": I put in boldface the relevant couplet.

Said the little boy, 'Sometimes I drop my spoon.'

Said the old man, 'I do that too.'

The little boy whispered, 'I wet my pants.'

'I do that too,' laughed the little old man.

Said the little boy, 'I often cry.'

The old man nodded, 'So do I.'

'But worst of all,' said the boy, 'it seems

Grown-ups don't pay attention to me.'

And he felt the warmth of a wrinkled old hand.

'I know what you mean,' said the little old man.

So ... as of right now ... I'm on Google/Gmail--every device except my iPad, which I'm afraid to fuss with because, well, it might not work, and that means I would have to go through all the re-setting again--and it would also mean, of course, that I'd have to, you know, cry.