EVERY GENERATION HAS MORE THAN IT NEEDS - SO THEIR PARENTS THINK

I've been off line for a while because of buying a new laptop computer.  My old laptop was getting as slow as me and I felt I needed something faster.  I have a 14" Toshiba Satellite and as with any new piece of electronics, there is a learning curve.  Then, of course, there is the need to personalize the desktop, home pages, and hardware.  For instance, I don't like the tap feature on most mouse pads; they are too sensitive and I end up entering folders or programs I did not intend.  Hence, I always look for a way to turn off the tap function.

Well, all this takes awhile.  It takes awhile to learn where the various switches are and it takes awhile to learn what to turn off and what to leave alone.  Added to all this is the fact that I am a slow learner -- or just cautious.  Anyway, I think I have this mustang under control, ready to ride, so to speak, so I'm ready to resume writing my blog.

Why did I want a new laptop?  Did I need one?  Certainly not.  I already had one and it worked.  I wanted a new laptop because my old one (now five years old and by industry standards, obsolete) not only was slow but also incapable of running some of the newer (meaning, larger) programs.  In addition, it did not have some of the bells and whistles of newer computers on the market and I was envious.

Prices on laptops have come down so much from five years ago that is seemed almost insane to not buy a new computer.  This new laptop with double the speed, memory, etc. cost about one-third what my older laptop cost.  And it has some of the previously mentioned bells and whistles missing from the other machine: webcam, multiple USB ports (one a high speed port), a memory card reader, built-in broadband capability, et al.

But the new laptop started me thinking about all the electronic "things" my children and grandchildren have that I never had at their age.  They not only have these things, they have the latest version.  They've gone through more cell phones, for example, than I have golf balls -- and I go through a lot of golf balls.  (If my golf balls could sing the woods bordering the golf course would be alive with the sound of music, except for the balls under water going glub, glub, glub.)

Further thought on the subject made me realize that every generation thinks it just has to have the gadgets and conveniences available at the time, very quickly reaching the point of wondering how the previous generation got along without them.  Who among us, young or old, hasn't wondered: "How did the world function with computers?"  They are everywhere and in every part of our lives it seems.

But why stop with computers?  How about cell phones, SUVs, color HDTV, electric blankets, microwave ovens, refrigerators with ice cube and cold water dispensers, tires that are guaranteed for 50,000 miles or more (When was the last time you changed a tire?), credit cards, EZ passes for quicker entry to toll roads, CD players, iPods, DVD players, Blue Tooth everything, automatic dishwashers and on and on.

My generation didn't have all those things.  True.  But we did have our at the time must-have creature comforts that many of our parents must have wondered about.  What young couple setting up housekeeping in the 1950s gave any thought to having a car, maybe two.  Some of our parents at that point still survived with just one car, and an older one at that.  We had to have a television set, even if it was black and white TV.  And we had a telephone, maybe two or three, while many of our parents still got along with one phone on the wall in the kitchen -- and it was a rotary dial phone.  Our wives worked while our mothers thought a women's place was at home.  And we bought things on credit! 

Clothes?  We had several pairs of dress shoes, several more pairs for sports or casual wear, several suits and jackets for every occasion.  Meanwhile, my dad had one suit: a dark navy blue gabardine, dark enough to be suitable for church, weddings and funerals -- and he wore it winter or summer, always with a tie.  Casual Friday hadn't been invented yet and church service, weddings and funerals always required a suit, no exceptions.

When my wife and I married we had little but we nevertheless took some of the money we received from relatives to buy a HiFi record player.  It wasn't a stereo set, understand, just a state-of-the-art Sylvania HiFi record player.  We both had a collection of 33/3rd long-play records of favorite artists and we felt it made sense to buy a good record player.  Looking back, I am sure both our parents thought it a stupid waste of money since neither of them had such a fine piece of electronics in their house.

Looking back a bit farther, however, I decided that my parent's generation probably started their adult lives with some things their parents had done without: a car, a telephone, a washing machine (clothes driers wouldn't come along until much later), an electric fan, an electric toaster, and other gadgets that surely made their parents wonder. 

I suspect now that every generation looks at the next generation as the "me" generation, the generation that has to have every new convenience and have it now.  Well, I'm trying to not fall too far behind the current generation -- a battle I suspect I am losing -- by buying a new laptop with some of the current must-have features.  I suppose that some day my grandchildren will look back and wonder how grandma and grandpa managed "in their day."