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| My folks' twenty-something-year-old microwave... |
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| ...and it still works like a charm. |
It seems I learned (kinda) to use a computer before I learned to drive a car, but I was
semi-adept at figuring out the new VCR and any stereo in the house when I was a kid. But before I was a teenager, I wasn’t
really allowed touch any of the electronics (or anything else potentially breakable) and was lucky to be able to
use the microwave (the very same one my parents still have after twenty-something years)...
I suppose my early technoliteracy started with TV and radio: even I remember the old 8-Tracks. When I was a "little bitty thing," as my father would put it, I used to get
up in the middle of the night, turn on the old swivel Zenith TV (no remote), then curl up in my dad's big chair and fall asleep
with the TV on, and still woke up in my own bed (hmmm...wonder how that happened?).
I loved drawing, painting, and taking pictures, capturing an image in any way I could,
even through writing poetry later. I still remember my first camera: a Kodak Disc Camera. I thought I was the only one who had one.
Ultimately it was my love for music that would dominate my early technoliteracy. I took my "boombox" with me just about everywhere (usually at the
request of friends). Oh! And my folks still have it too.
| My "boombox" from high school... |
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| ...it's my dad's now, and, yes, it still works. ;-D |
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Some of my friends still remember hearing the boom of music as I bounced my little '78 Chevrolet Chevette down the street to pick them up for school or to hang out. A comedian (I can't remember his name) once said about
his own '78 Chevette that it "could stop on a dime. It couldn't get over one, but could stop on it," or something to
that effect. I loved that car and never when anywhere without tunes -- always TFF, and generally a wide variety of music
guaranteed to entertain any of my passengers.
At the age of 10, I learned how to put a needle on a vinyl record without scratching it. At 11, I learned that cassette tape players could eat the ribbon in a cassette tape for no apparent reason. And later, I learned to escape from my angst-ridden
teen life through the music I listened to, particularly Tears for Fears. I got my first Walkman at 17, and...well...I still have that somewhere.
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Though I feel that I was fairly adept at my early technological literacies, I hestitated
becoming familiar with computers, and didn't truly start figuring out my way around a computer, and later the Internet, until I met my husband, who is a bit
of a computer geek.
My introduction to cyberspace was spent researching Tears for Fears and seeking knowledge and companions
who follow a similar spiritual path. I joined Yahoo Groups, message boards, and researched all kinds of websites.
Only one of those sites is still active.
Later, I learned to use the Internet and library databases to research topics for essays.
Now, I tutor students on computer use, have a pretty awesome computer of my own, and a laptop. I'm no longer afraid to keep my poetry on a
disk (though I still have hardcopies of them -- somewhere). And I'm becoming quite the serious gamer apparently, though I never thought of myself in that context.
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![sonies_antique_request_004.jpg](/imagelib/sitebuilder/misc/show_image.html?linkedwidth=actual&linkpath=http://badra.druid.tripod.com/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderpictures/sonies_antique_request_004.jpg&target=tlx_new&title=My "boombox" from high school...)
