When I was a youngster, we had one radio, a small record player (given to us), a refrigerator, an outside toilet (which was used in summertime), the inside bathroom used in winter, a dial telephone (with a shared party line) and one car (which only my father drove). By the time I was a teenager, we had a black and white TV. These were appliances and conveniences that I could operate easily. Most simply had on and off switches, plus, I had to share everything with the four siblings still living at home.
I have to admit, my husband and I are usually the last on the block, the last in our family, the last in our community, to buy these new modern contraptions.
It was our six year old granddaughter, Karissa, who was first to show us how outdated we were. At the time we had a push-button phone downstairs. Upstairs, we had our old dial phone. Karissa was upstairs, ready for bed, when she asked, “May I call Mommy?”
“Sure,” I told her. She then reached out for the old dial phone and said, “What do I do?”
Recently, we’ve graduated to a cell phone. We hardly ever have it with us, unless we travel, so we can call ahead for a motel room. A few in the family have our cell number, but are told not to use it unless it’s an emergency.
I can understand why cell phones are small in size. We need to be able to slip them into our pockets or purse. But, the numbers are so tiny, it’s hard for me to press even with a small finger. I often wonder how most men, who usually have a bigger thumb than women, accomplish this feat.
To this day, I don’t know anyone’s phone number by heart. I’m lucky I know my own. Again, it was my grandchild who noted I was dialing someone’s number over and over when they hadn’t answered. She’s so smart. She asked, “Why don’t you use redial?” I hadn’t even seen the small print.
Digital? I hate anything digital. My husband knows I hate reading manuals, labels or “how to” even in the cooking department. We have digital clocks in the house and in the cars. We have two digital thermostats, one for the furnace and one for the air conditioner. Each season, I’m supposed to rethink what to do!
If the power goes off at the house, my hubby fixes all digitals. I let the digital clock on my car go for months without changing it. It doesn’t get corrected until my hubby can’t stand it anymore.
Since we’ve moved into a new home, we now have air conditioning. I wasn’t exactly enthused about it in the beginning. My hubby and I have two different temperature gauges. If he’s hot, I’m cold and vice versa. I can stand the heat pretty good, but he can’t. I couldn’t tell how many times, during winter months, I said, “I’m cold!” “You can’t be,” he’d claim.
I’ve learned to live with air conditioning in the car, by always having a sweater along or an afghan to cover my legs. So I figured, I could handle it the same way in the house. I even take a sweater to grocery stores in summer. I hate walking by the freezers. It’s like walking by a blizzard at full blast.
Doorbells? We lived in our other home some 20 years before moving to this new home after retirement. At the old home, we had a doorbell at both the front and back door. One rang once, the other two times. I always ran to the wrong door. This home only has one doorbell at the front door. I have it down pat in this house!
When I was a teenager, we had one radio and often my siblings and I lay on the kitchen floor listening to the 10 top tunes. Some people in my family, and my grandkids included, listen to music all day long. It’s not that I don’t like music. I love to dance. My grandkids can attest to this fact. I can’t drive and listen to music at the same time. Even car salesmen have learned this.
When my husband and I went shopping for a new car for me, we listened as patiently as we could to the sales pitch. Part of the pitch was to push stereo, CD player and radio, which operated in the front and the back of the car. After the salesman turned on the music, he asked, “Would you like to drive now?” I said I would. The first thing I did, when getting in the driver’s seat, was to turn off the blasted radio.
Years ago, when I was raising teens, I knew how much they enjoyed listening to records on the stereo. One day, when they came home from school, I announced, “I purchased a stereo with albums included, for a terrific low price. It’s in the living room.” Upon running into the living room, they found the new stereo system – a floor model, hand-turned Victrola, with a complete set of albums from the golden age. They were quite disappointed.
My second husband found out my aversion to TV on one of our first dates. The teens had been watching TV when he arrived. Eventually, they left, leaving the TV on. When we were ready to leave, I went over to turn off the switch. I couldn’t find it. I hadn’t realized I had never turned the switch on or off, so I didn’t know where the buttons were.
My daughter, Tina, has the best story I’ve ever heard about watching TV. Her children had heard the age old story about how I had to walk miles down a country lane to a school bus. One day the grandkids asked Tina, “Mommy, did you have to walk through a lot of snow to the school bus?” Tina replied, “No, but I never had a remote control. I had to walk clear across the room to turn on the TV!”
At the age of 65, I spent the night with my sister, Dorothy, who is seven years older than me. We picked up a tape of a movie we wanted to see on her new high definition TV. Previously, her son Alan had set it up and helped her with instructions on how to use the tape. By the time I came for a visit, she felt quite confident in her mechanical skills.
The first thing she did was place the tape in the slot. When it went down, she beamed. She was even prouder when she saw lights appear on the VCR box. Soon, she felt badly. We could hear the tape going, but we didn’t even have a picture on the screen.
By this time, she had three remotes in front of her. This was one of the confusions. Which one does she use? She tried pushing a few buttons. She “thought” she knew. Needless to say, she ended up calling her son, the TV installer. In talking to him, he remembered he had a DVD, on his last visit, but forgot to switch to VCR for her. She was now to find the red, white and yellow wires and pull them out of the DVD box. Me, I just sit back, write it all down. I’m learning all the lingo.
Dorothy got a flashlight, handed me the phone and said, “Tell me what Alan says to do.” She then proceeded to go down on all fours in back of the TV. I was on all fours in front of the TV (this was several years ago). I asked Alan what the boxes were called on the left. He told me, “A DVD box and below a compost. On the right a VCR (there were still VCR tapes, now its discs).” I followed Alan’s instructions explicitly, or so I thought. I told Dorothy, “Pull those colors out of the compost box.”
She yelled, “It is not a compost box. It is a Comcast.”
OK, I got that straight. It’s not a garbage disposal. Dot finally found the wires and pulled them out.
Now it was my turn. I was to pull the VCR box towards me and gently lay it on the floor. I was to reach, slowly, the colored wires from Dot, through the opening in back. I was support to connect them to my VCR, which was now on the floor.
“Simple,” I told Alan. It wasn’t so simple after all. I got the flash light and exclaimed, “There’s no white, yellow or red on the back of this VCR.” I look again and again. Finally, I see a glint, I feel, is yellow and a tiny glint of white. I told Alan, “If a woman would have put this together, we’d have a slab of yellow paint and a slab of white so we could see it.” Still, I had to find out if these wires go in the in or the out. It was the in, so I did just that.
Now I was flustered, I couldn’t find a red glint of any kind. I asked Alan, “Do I let the red wire hang?” He affirmed this. Now I lifted the VCR gently back on the shelf, making sure the red wire hangs loosely in back. I completed my end of the project.
After the crash course, Dorothy came out of her crawl space. We then finished the instructions from Alan and actually got to see the movie.
Our second problem started after the movie. Dot was able to rewind the movie, but then she wasn’t sure how to get the TV back on. I wanted to see the weather channel, as a storm was approaching next day, and I wanted to be on the way home before it started.
Dot recalled pushing an input button before. I said, “Look for an output button. Maybe that will get the TV on.” There was no output button and too many other buttons to mention here. Next problem, Dot had three remotes – one for TV, one for Comcast (by now I picked up the lingo) and one for VCR. She was not sure which one to use to get the TV back on. Plus, it was too late to call her son. She then pushed all the remotes’ on and off power buttons until she could call her son the next day. Soon we went to bed. Just before I was about to sleep, Dorothy said, “Do you know in two years, all TVs are going to be digital?”
“Are you kidding,” I said, “I haven’t even learned the digital clocks yet. You know my Harry has to live forever, or I’d have to sell all our appliances, all TVs, all clocks, unless they’re battery operated.”
Dot reassured me, “Don’t worry. I’ll help you!” This coming from the girl who couldn’t figure out her VCR and TV earlier.
I finally fell asleep while visions of digitals danced in my head!
Carole Christman Koch grew up in Berks County and has been published in numerous publications. She has a passion for writing and has many stories from growing up on a farm to everyday stories.
