A Present To Myself In Our Present Time Elita Sohmer Clayman

I got my computer going after not being able to use it since it was being fixed in India to here in Baltimore, Maryland, USA. I guess I am still acting naïve when I just cannot get over the idea that the technician in India or sometimes in the Philippines, can take over the control of my computer, move it around, as if he or she is right here with me in my home office.

The kids now days know how to do many things at their young ages that I, who I always thought was a bit smarter than some kids I knew, cannot comprehend what these youngsters know. My grandson age seven was visiting from out of state last Sunday and he wanted to put in a DVD disc into my DVD recorder. He waited patiently while I took out the one in there I had been watching days before, told me which buttons to push to open/close the slot and everything else I already knew; but he perceived I did not know.

They are all quite savvy in these technical advances and I think it gives them even more brain power than we had when we were young at his age over seventy years ago. There were no contraptions like DVD players, cellphones and television sets. It increases their ability to absorb and to really be extra intelligent.

In our days, girls played with dolls and cut out movie star pictures from magazines they bought, boys played with toy soldiers and we all worked cardboard puzzles, no wooden ones in those olden days.

We had a game called Monopoly which is and was a board game. We thought ourselves brilliant when we amassed great real estate properties as was the theme of the game. When I went to Atlantic City and saw the names of the streets were similar to the Monopoly board properties, we had acquired when we played these games; I was thrilled to view their same names.

We did play a game in the newspaper called Scramble, not Scrabble as a game now; where the words were printed in the wrong order and we would figure out the right word quickly as we could. Dad and I played it often when he was reading the newspaper and he and I would figure out the words because I was excellent in spelling, so he figured I could unscramble them.

I guess we were unsophisticated and innocent in those days of 1940-1950, though I believe we were content with what he had. I loved to read and so books were my hobby and I devoured them with great desire.  Albert Camus said about desire “the warm beast that lies curled up in our loins and stretches itself with a fierce gentleness.” I had a hunger for knowledge and we got it from books, because there was no television set in our home until 1949. We did visit some folks we knew who were ‘rich’ and owned a small screen one like my mom’s brother Louis. That was not for gaining knowledge; it was to watch a Sunday night show called The Toast Of The Town with Ed Sullivan as its host and moderator.

One Sunday, we were all there and on the show that night was a new group from England called The Beatles. First we thought it was a buggy sounding name, then Dad said they all needed haircuts and then we realized how wonderful they were. We gained no knowledge from TV, just entertainment.

So books were my friends and I devoured them and even once tried to write a book on Franklin Delano Roosevelt, our president who died. My friend Myra and I got about one or two pages done when we realized, we were still in elementary school and this was a hard assignment we had attempted to accomplish.

Now because I am a writer, I know how difficult it is sometimes to put thoughts down on paper then and the computer screen now. I do have an easy way, I create my stories for online sites and start out with a few lines of a theme and go from there and it seems to flow from me and I also have learned to be a good typist which I was not, when I worked in an office sixty years ago and the most modern piece of equipment was an electric typewriter. It was so modern, we could not comprehend we had gotten one in the office I worked in. We oohed and ahhed over it and let it sit there, dusted it off and finally went to use it.The speed was overwhelming versus the old fashioned one which was so slow.

Even then, I was not a good typist, I could not get through one page without an error. Now, I have become a good one since I got into computer use about twelve years ago. I type fast and I guess that helps not getting Arthritis in the fingers. Who knows if it helps or hinders? This is a way of life, computers, cellphones, IPod’s, Blackberry phones and digital cameras. Also, reading books on Kindle or Nook and reading magazines on digital sites you purchase them from. It makes for less space used on a book shelf, less trash on trash days and an easy way to assemble them and reread if you want.

Modern days are just that and our grandkids look at us like we are from the Middle Ages, when we mention, we did not have this or that item when we were their age. I use to look at my Dad as if he was from the Middle Ages when I was a kid. He was not and we are not. We just did not have this technology and even when we go to the dentist, he has a computer in each examining room with a picture on the screen of your mouth.

When we first learned to dance in 1977, I went out and bought an audio cassette recorder and recorded what the teacher taught us. Then the next day, we would listen to it and recreate the new steps he had showed us because he spoke into the tape in telling us which foot to move where and when. I thought that quite modern. When I went back to get a college degree in  1964, I inquired of the professor, Dr. John Levay if I could record his golden words of knowledge on the four psychology courses I took from him; so that at night when the kids were asleep, I could listen and absorb them again. He said yes and I bought one that was in the style then. It must have been 10x12 in size and very bulky to carry to school. Now they have such small ones, they are the size of a deck of cards or smaller.

Times change, we change, we mature, we appreciate the times changing.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning said in a poem “How do I love thee, let me count the ways.” We can now say how do we live life, let me count the ways. There are so many ways to live life well now days, that it would take many sheets in a blank notebook to assemble them and to write them down.

Just yesterday, I was in Staples and among other office items I purchased, I bought for one dollar on sale, a black and white  composition notebook, no spiral metal pieces, just like the kind I had in elementary school to do homework in.  Seeing it, brought back the memories of those ‘olden’days to me when I would write my essays or compositions in it and then neatly tear the sheets out and submit them to our teacher in English class.Then in high school, we were allowed to buy loose leaf notebooks with the metal holes and we could neatly turn those sheets in.

Now the black composition book will be filled with some thoughts, ideas and papers I have printed out from my computer on comments on my stories online. Who knew back in 1940 or thereabouts, that a computer would be our dear friend, our accomplice in writing and most of all an easy way to type and have the errors and spelling corrected by Spell Check. Who knew then in 1945 when I was eleven, that at age seventy-eight, I would still be turning out my stories, but in a faster manner and with greater passion and would see them published almost instantly. In those days, instant coffee was a novelty, no brewing, just hot water and a teaspoon from a bottle.

Now we have instant gratification in our writing with instant publishing and if we are lucky instant enjoyment from our readers to us. As Camus said there is ‘ gentleness’ I feel when I finish writing a story or article. I feel gentle qualities that I accomplished it and feel strong and calm, not fierce in the mean sense though he called it fierce gentleness. I had my desire, attained it by writing of the subject and most of all, I put my own and complete thoughts down for others to hopefully admire and enjoy.

As someone said and I quote “there is a time to look back at the good times and time to look ahead to live our imaginary thoughts and make them come into our present.” That present time is our present to our self. That is my saying to me and to you.