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Tech with Grandma

Grandma is 89 now. Her birthday was two weeks ago. Nothing fazes her. Her reliable response to being shown new technology is to say, "the things they think of..." 

The way she says it makes the "they" so distant from her reality. I think, in her mind, a bunch of guys in white lab coats just sit around dreaming up new ideas and making them happen. She, like Pap, show tolerance for new ways of doing things that a lot of old folks don't. Both of them seem to expect things to change, things to progess. Both also seem disinterested in it, totally content with AM radio and local news.

Neither Pap nor Grandma seem to consider technology to be invasive, as ominous a force as do the people surrounding me in daily life. Maybe that's because they lived in a Golden Era America, when technology presented wonderful modern conveniences, not always-connected devices cramming media into our skulls. Pap has never once used the Internet, and maybe that's why he's not concerned about online privacy like my parents, who lived in an era of distrusting the man, but he's keen on selling on eBay. I'll help him with that next time I'm back, around Easter. 

I showed Grandma how my camera is remotely controlled through my iPhone. I put the camera on the mantle, then we went back to chatting with Pap.