Electronics and Me

Let’s face it; I’m a child of the 60s. I love music, flowers and love. I grew up with a radio, record player (later hi fi stereo), a black and white television with the official rabbit ears. Rabbit ears that operated so much better with aluminum foil wrapped around each tip.

While my kids were growing up, they moved from a black and white television set (because we were the honest-to-God last people on the face of the earth to have one), to a colored television, to boom boxes, Walkmans (and I totally coveted these yellow radios, because they made me feel like an athlete), tapes, CDs, computers, computer games and Television games.

We had an Atari game and they could figure out the system and the games. I could actually play Pong but that was it. I sucked at Donkey Kong and everything else that is remotely related to electronic games. Although I can play the Angry Bird game on my daughter’s iPad…which I am going to buy someday for myself.

My kids were naturals with their eye and hand coordination. They were already on their way to conquering the electronic highway of knowledge while I fumbled away with how to make my floppy disk ready to use. After I wrote down all those steps of how to prepare and save my floppy disk - technology inside the computer changed and made everything easier. Thank you little genie inside my computer…you have your work cut out for you!

Forget that I couldn’t figure out how to tape a Television program in the old days. I had plenty of kids to do that. Now, television has high definition and a controller that has a DVR on it. Whatever! As for televisions, they now come with their own controllers, and then there is the DVD controller. Don’t forget the universal remote control, which can be used for the TV and DVD player. In my bedroom, my one controller turns on my TV but the other controller operates the volume. I have four controllers, the third one controls the DVD and I have no idea what the fourth controller does other then takes up space and dust. But thank heavens that I now have “air in a can,” and a dust cloth to remedy all of that.

At least my son, who lived here with me for the past few years, was able to help me figure out how to go from watching TV to watching a video. After some incompetency on my part and frustration on his, he actually wrote each step down on a yellow Post It note and put it on the door of my TV stand. Now I can figure it out myself. Thank God for Post Its.