Musings

I've been wondering recently just what my dad would have done on the web if he'd been born just a little later. Unfortunately, by the time attractive web pages with bells and whistles arrived he was already suffering from Parkinson's disease. Not that he didn't try. We bought my folks a computer. Our first sign that all was not well was when we had to extract my dad's Visa card from the floppy disc drive. Eventually, after we could no longer get the thing to work, he literally took it apart. I had my first look at the insides of a pc.

In his working days, my father was a wonderfully witty book review editor and columnist, and also a talented photographer. Although in general a techno-klutz (he never learned to drive), he did learn to use a word processor. I think he might have enjoyed having a forum beyond the Sunday paper for his take on the world. He would have loved posting his photos. And the man who wrote about one letter to me in his whole life might actually have had a use for e-mail.

Whether I could have turned my dad into a competent computer user I don't know. But every time I help a senior use the library computers I know that nothing they do on them can surprise me.