Skip to main content

THE COMPUTERS OF MY LIFE

 I absolutely love using the computer.

I absolutely hate using the computer.
Both of the above statements are absolutely true.
I remember my first introduction to a machine called a computer. It was an ad in newspaper from Radio Shack. I took it to Milan and told him I wanted one thinking it was some kind of magic box that could give you information on anything by just asking. Kind of like Google but of course there was no google then.
This would have been late 60's, early 70s.
Then I realized you had to literally put information into it before you could get something out
I had started collecting information in the form of ephemera probably in the 5th or 6th grade although I had no knowledge of the word itself. I just called it clippings and I started in shoeboxes, then graduated to large boxes, then filing cabinets. I was good at collecting - recovering not so good. It was like everything went into a black hole so a machine that could find it all for me would be a miracle.
The next thing that happened, it was 1985 and I was working for New York Life and my manager told me I would have to buy a computer for my home. He didn't tell me it would cost over $5000 but I was making good money, so what the heck?
It was 1990 or so before I found out about the internet and I've been working on figuring it out ever since.
Computers are now cheaper which is good since I no longer make any money at all. My original printer was a tractor feed about the size of the computer itself. Together they filled up a whole wall in my office.
My first laptop was carried in a suitcase made for it. It probably weighed in at 25=30 lbs and had to be plugged in. No battery. It cost $7000 but NYL said I would have to have it in order to keep making money. It's probably the reason I have back trouble today because I carried it around like a purse but it was bigger than the biggest briefcase you could get.
Back in those days you had to hire an electrician to set a computer up. at least for someone with my limited lack of intelligence. I've never learned how to operate an electric can opener yet, nor can I figure out a screw driver although I do know how a Phillips differs from others.
I loved it when plug and play became the norm but it took me a year to figure out USB, I still don't understand how that little thing can draw out electricity from the wall. But of course I don't understand electricity anyway. BTW I had dial up for years.
If there was ever anyone more dense than me about computers etc it had to be my attorney boss, John Low. He didn't like change. That's why for 21 years I took shorthand across the desk in his office. He would never have used a dictating machine! Telling you this because I still think it is funny.
His son Mark was just starting college and he told his dad he could make more money by learning stuff about a "computer". Mr. Low was convinced he would starve to death trying to make a living that way. He was convinced computers were a trend that would never go anywhere and we would always use a typewriter and shorthand in a law office, and file our information on 3x5 index cards, arranged alphabetically in a drawer. Mr. Low was definitely not prescient on the subject.
If you know Mark Low, you know he is a computer wizard, both in using and installing and he had the computer market locked up for years in Lebanon because he was so far ahead of the game. I don't think his dad ever apologized to him for feeling the way he did, although he was always so proud of anything Mark did. I was working for his dad when he was born, and he has been like a son to me and of course my go-to person on computers ever since Day One.

©    Joan Rowden Hart 2000

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Moneymaker House on Harwood Avenue

I was so thrilled to read in last night's Lebanon Daily Record that the Laclede County Historical Society has now received title to the Moneymaker House on Harwood Avenue. I have always loved that house. As a little girl living in Old Town Lebanon on the corner of Wood & Apple Streets, and walking to school each day, I passed that house every day and always thought it was the most beautiful house in town. The large mature trees in the front yard were always so stately with their long curvy branches sweeping the ground and creating a canopy for the squirrels to have their own private playhouse during the spring and summer. In the fall, the leaves became a gorgeous array of colors gradually falling to the ground and making a carpet under the trees, eventually paving the way for the white snow which inevitably would come as winter would arrive. I loved the low branches sweeping the ground at the Moneymaker house so much that I asked Milan in the early years of our marriage to le...

"Mary Did You Know" by Mark Lowry

THE NIGHT GOD WATCHED OVER MY SON IN LAW

  I’m sure most of us who read the Lebanon newspaper on a daily basis are appalled at the number of drug stops, domestic abuse, and break-ins that take place in Lebanon every day. I often wonder how our law enforcement men and women keep a straight face at the stupid statements made by the people they encounter during these incidents. We sometimes have to laugh, wondering how dumb these people think our officers are. But we become very serious when we think of so many drug and alcohol impaired drivers being out on the roads and highways at the same time we are transporting our loved ones back and forth over those same roads. And we must never forget that every one of those traffic stops, domestic disturbance calls and other 911 calls puts those officers at tremendous risk of serious injury or the loss of their own lives, even when the situation appears to be routine and mundane. Such was the case on December 9, 1991 when Deputy Sheriff Leslie Roark went to the home of James R. Joh...