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Are seniors surviving the electronics era?

As I sit in front of my laptop computer wondering just how long March will continue to roar like a lion before becoming

As I sit in front of my laptop computer wondering just how long March will continue to roar like a lion before becoming a lamb, I got to thinking about whether we, as seniors, are managing to adjust or accept  our now glitzy new world of electronic gadgets. For yours truly, I am so lucky to have children and grandchildren who get me out of the push button jams and glitches, but I have found that it is so much easier to communicate with family and friends through all these handy dandy new devices.

The Internet has really helped me with the search and research for doing my freelance writing, but around our house, we only possess one lap-top, a cell phone, three cordless phones, and an I-pad which we received as a Christmas gift and have fallen in love with. I know that most other homes have a whole lot more, which are now being used 24-7 by the new generation, but how has our senior population reacted to all these beeping and tweeting gadgets that are now capable of performing miracles in a split second from any location? A good friend of mine, who is also a senior, sent me a real neat article the other day on this very subject, and this week, just for fun, I will pass it on to you.

Why at 65 years I don’t belong on Facebook

When I bought my Blackberry, I thought about the 30-year business that I ran with 1800 employees, all without a cell phone that plays music, takes videos, pictures and communicates with Facebook and Twitter. I signed up under duress for both Twitter and Facebook so that my four kids, their spouses, my seven grandchildren and two great grand kids could communicate with me in the modern way. What the heck, I figured that I could handle something as simple as Twitter with only 140 characters of space, but little did I know that I would become an instant celebrity of the airwaves with scads of new would-be friends from far and wide. My phone was beeping every three minutes with the details of everything that I don’t really need to know and others that I am scared to learn about our next generation. I quickly found that I am not ready to live with this, so I now keep my cell phone in the garage in my golf bag.

Then the kids bought me a GPS for my last birthday because, along with my wife, they say that I get lost every now and then just going over to the grocery store or the library. After a frustrating trial run, I now keep that in a box under my tool bench along with the bluetooth (it’s red) phone that I am also supposed to use when I drive. I wore it once and was standing in line at a local grocery store talking to my wife and noticed that everyone within 50 yards was glaring at me. I had to take my hearing aid out to use it, so I guess I was getting a little loud.

By the way, the GPS looked pretty smart up on my dash board, but the lady inside that gadget was the most annoying, rudest person I had run into in a long time. Every 10 minutes, she would sarcastically say, “Re-calc-u-lating.” You would think she could be a whole lot nicer. It was like she could barely tolerate me, and she would let go with a deep sigh and then tell me to make a U-turn at the next light. Then if I made a right turn instead...well, it was not a good relationship.” When I get lost now, I call my wife and tell her the name of the cross streets, and while she is beginning to develop the same tone as Gypsy (the G.P.S. lady) at least she loves me.

To be perfectly frank, I am still trying to learn how to use the cordless phones in our house. We have had them for 4 years, but I still haven’t figured out how I can lose three phones all at once and then have to run around digging under chair cushions, checking bathrooms, and dirty laundry baskets when the phone rings. I have decided that the world is really getting much too complex for me. They even mess me up every time I go to the grocery store. You would think they could settle on something themselves, but this sudden ‘paper or plastic?’ every time I check out just knocks me for a loop. I bought some of those cloth reusable bags to avoid looking confused, but I never remember to take them with me. Now I toss it all back at them, and when they ask me that same ‘paper or plastic?’ question, I just say, “It doesn’t matter to me, I am bi-sacksual’, and then it’s their turn to stare back at me with a blank look.” I was recently asked if I tweet, and I answered ‘No, but I do burp a lot.”

Always take a deep breath, try to take lots of time to stay tuned in to our regular day-to day lifestyles, and have a great week, all of you.

— Hammertime