Computers and a Small Town Family

My wife interned as a system analyst, and graduated from the computer program that I bombed out of. When she has an email to send, she writes out the message and gives it to one of our daughters to handle.

I've got half her formal training in the care and feeding of these digital wonders, and I'm the one that family members claim has to be surgically removed from a computer at the end of a day.

One of my daughters shares her mother's indifference to computers, another uses the things for her writing, email, browsing the Web and playing the occasional online game.

My son, as noted earlier today, is making a computer from a relic and a wreck, and my oldest daughter alternates between studying medical terminology, making pictures with a sort of combination of traditional drawing methods and digital painting, and giving me technical advice on Web pages that I'm developing.

Following up on part of Family Life: Unglamourous, Maybe; Boring, Never (June 27, 2007), our #1 daughter has worked the bugs out of her laptop and its operating system. It only took a few trans-continental phone calls, research on the Web, and climbing a steel learning curve.

Most of the bugs, that is. The point is, it works now.

That "#1 daughter" term may need explanation. I've found it easier, sometimes, to refer to the kids in terms of birth order. The oldest is #1 daughter, the next-oldest is #2 daughter, same with #3, and, from my half of humanity, #1 son.

Maybe it seems that I'm bragging about my family. Well, that's understandable. I'm very pleased with this bunch of folks, and all too ready to say so.

There's another reason I posted this blog, though. Two, actually.

1. The more things change, the more they stay the same. My son has a half-built computer standing in his room. A couple generations back, it would have been a hot rod or jalopy in the back yard. Before that, I'd guess that it would have been a special horse, or something of the sort. What hasn't changed is the way that children grow, learning skills that they'll use as adults: and the beliefs that determine what those skills mean.

2. These days, small towns are not longer isolated pockets of quaint and backward folk, if they ever were. Thanks to Information Age technology and a habit of learning, folks out here can, if they want, be nearly as connected with the world as someone living in one of the great cities. Perhaps more so, since we don't have the hour(s)-long commutes and other distractions of urban life.