What’s happened during my dotage to dash almost all interest in how things operate? Why’s it always easier, as I push 70, to push mechanical matters to a son or grandson? Let me explain:
Much more affluent than in earlier years, I’ve acquired much “stuff.” No home is without a computer, and I notice as I struggle on the treadmill at the City Recreation Center, that a number of people my age are wired, in the sense that they have music being piped in from a device the size of a quarter.
Twenty years ago, these same fitness buffs and I would have had a 60-pound Victrola record player strapped to our backs as we sweated to the oldies on a steam-powered treadmill.
But back to “stuff”: Either through the simple act of outgrowing it or my inability to keep up with the technology, I buy but don’t fiddle much with gadgets anymore. Of course, I will use my laptop computer until I expire, but will probably never cultivate a taste or tolerance for electronic gadgets found in Better Image catalogs.
As part of the generation that acquired a zillion cassette tapes (but never 8-tracks), a couple of decades ago, we were bugged over the fact that it’s hard to get players anymore (except at yard sales and AAUW rummage sales). Similarly, new cars come equipped with CD players but not tape machines.
Our solution? We special- ordered a stereo combination for our car, which my friend Joseph Garcia installed and painstakingly explained its operation.
His good efforts notwithstanding, I still struggle to switch from AM to FM to CD to tape. I figure mastering the mechanics of the new purchase requires positioning myself directly in front of the instrument, whipping out the manual and taking my chances. But that’s even more dangerous than driving while talking on a cell phone.
Fortunately my lack of ability or desire to punch buttons makes me like that person who buys a microwave oven only to heat water for coffee.
As Joseph removed our old stereo and replaced it with the combo stereo, out came the digital clock that was always lighted. Now, if the stereo’s off, so is the clock. If I turn on the new stereo but turn the volume down, to see the clock, my wife complains that the tape she inserted last week is running, preventing her from catching all of her novel on tape.
How people can engage in three-way conversations, call-backs, texting and swallowing a burrito while driving amazes me. But that amazement doesn’t translate to a desire to join them.
Going through a pawn shop just the other day, I saw an ancient camera, the Argus C-3, one of the earliest 35mm cameras, which was a wonder in its time. It even had a range finder, the ability to focus, and an adjustable lens and shutter. Of course, cameras of that vintage still allowed double-exposures and skipped frames, but for the time they were high tech.
I considered buying the camera, not for use – who buys film anymore anyway? – but to have around to show my grandkids what their great-grandfather used in his prime in 1948.
Dad may have been one of the first people in town with an adjustable camera. Many had Brownies, but few had a real flash and focusing mechanism.
I believe my interest in gadgetry stemmed from watching him install cloud and haze filters. And when he bought a projector to show his home movies, well, it was much more than run-of-DeMille.
Dad must have enjoyed the irony of getting attention through photography. Usually, all eyes are on the subject: the newlyweds slicing up the wedding cake or the vocalist booming out a tune. Dad liked eyes to smile on him. I noticed this by the particularly long time it took him to arrange his photos and focus, with maximum self-exposure as the result.
Often, at social events, one could hear my dad uttering, “S.A.F.E.” “What does it mean, Mr. Trujillo?” one would ask. “Oh, I’m glad you asked. It means ‘Shutter, Aperture, Focus, Exposure.'”
Well, that was a convenient way of making sure all the photo gadgetry elements were in sync, especially in the olden days before point-and-shoot and auto-focus.
At Tuesday’s Michelle Obama rally, thousands there pointed digital cameras. All of these tiny items have infinitely more capabilities than Dad’s Argus.
Had my dad been at the rally (he’d be 105 if he were alive), he’d probably sport the fanciest digital camera and be part of the crowd. And many would be able to hear Dad utter “S.A.F.E.”
Somehow, his passion for gadgetry is becoming lost on me.
• • •
They appear each election season.
I just received an extremely detailed e-mail, copied to several dozen others, urging me to vote “correctly” Nov. 4. This e-mail, and the millions similar to it, urge voters not to support Barack Obama because of his pro-choice stance.
As Obama himself said in the last debate, “Nobody wants abortion.” And he stressed education and proper upbringing and support to reduce the number of unwanted pregnancies.
As hot-button as this topic is, what about the fact that hundreds of thousands die in wars? Many of the victims are children and infants. And some of the casualties – we dare to speculate – are at the time in the womb.
Whoever gets elected will need to deal not only with abortion (which ought to be between a woman and her doctor, or a matter for states to settle), but with the financial train wreck that is America: taxes, the endless wars that our grandchildren will be paying for; poverty, education, health insurance, global warning, energy, trade, immigration, gun control and social security.
Why, then, do so many make it a one-issue election? It’s not as if there were no abortions during the tenure of the pro-life George W. Bush.