When I learned to drive an automobile, I learned the pedals, the clutch, the brake, window wiper, the lights and where to put the key. Nobody thought I needed to know what made the car function. That’s the same way I learned to use a computer. And for 20-some-odd years, my uninformed computer skills allowed me to add, subtract, multiply and divide, and categorize and write my articles. I kept my books, kept the books of my investment club and was considered “computer savvy,” because most of the women I knew were afraid to touch the computer. It served me well because I never needed to know the myriad things it could do. I coped with the changes all the way through Windows Professional – not knowing what I didn’t know or what options the computer offered. Then came Windows 10. It, too, would do whatever I needed it to do, as well as lots that I don’t need and will never need – I think it must be like having a Rolls Royce to go to the grocery!
Last month’s column never made it to the editor because I thought I had saved it and sent it, but I hadn’t saved it – I sent a blank page! So I’m trying again, having had a few lessons. What have we missed? My comments about the candidates and the misbehavior they have displayed and the dearth of any other news for the media to concentrate on – I take no credit for the two Republican candidates’ withdrawal, because my comments wouldn’t have influenced them even if they had read them.
Really, although I agonized over missing only my second deadline in 16 years, the only result was that several people asked me if I had been ill and said they missed reading the column. That was nice to hear, but I hated having to relate my incompetence.
But here is another month and I think I’ve got it! As I write, it’s Derby week with all its nostalgia for other years. New and old recipes for mint juleps (which nobody I know really likes), a list of the guests for the celebrity parties (I don’t know them either), speculation about the “favorite” and admiration for the hats and the roses fill the papers and the TV. The admonition that you haven’t really lived unless you’ve been to the Derby – I believed that until I attended it three times. So I have lived, and I’m never going again. I hope you now have lived and that you had a lovely time. And Kentucky sure is beautiful in the spring. cc