Tag: humor

Learning to cope with emerging technology

“Our mission is to connect every person in the world.”
– Mark Zuckerberg

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Technological advancement, properly applied, should bring improved quality of life with rewards in time savings and productivity. Don’t you agree?

But with every application of cutting edge techie tools comes more knowledge not enjoyed by those with a learning curve geared to outsmarting a computer. Or worse, nefarious characters with devious ideas for using it never intended by the developer. The internet, cell phones, mind boggling apps. A plethora of digital diversions that delight one day and dishearten the next.

Even with the newest … AI. Don’t we have enough artificial intelligence already serving as elected officials, television news analysts, and customer service reps?

Tech tools and toys were just emerging when fax machines were hailed as futuristic. We marveled at the one installed at the newspaper office in Center back then. “It’s going to save so much time,” we cheered, gazing at documents magically transferred through telephone lines. With every screeching sound of the machine’s “handshake” tone, everyone gathered to “ooh” and “ah” at letters from the other side of the country arriving in mere minutes.

In no time at all, we were sharing jokes and cartoons with friends and business associates. It was the best source for laughter around. Until Facebook came along.

In the real world, technology can make the impossible happen with ease and in record time. But just like a questionable joke inadvertently faxed to the wrong number, tech can create a desire to disappear into the unknown. Or render us ready to take the device and “throw it in the horse lot” as my grandmother used to say, when it doesn’t work as we think it should,

The late Lewis Grizzard, Southern humorist and author, put it succinctly in his book entitled, “Elvis Is Dead, and I Don’t Feel So Good Myself.” With his insightful humor, Grizzard poked fun at baby boomers trying to cope with emerging technology when he said, “The world around me is a tuxedo, and I’m a pair of brown shoes.”

That very thought came to me a while back. When my home security system designed to provide the secure feeling of a bad dog backing up a Smith and Wesson failed to function properly.

It’s a great piece of technology. Monitors doors and windows, the thermostat and selected appliances, the lights, reports the weather, and more that I have yet to master. It records videos of anyone approaching the doors and allows me to answer the doorbell from across town or across the country via my cell phone that has features I have yet to comprehend. Things that work great, provided the system installer and said smartphone user are both smarter than the technology.

It started the day a young technician came to my house and upgraded the control panel. Is it my imagination, or do all technical service reps look like they are a couple of years shy of being old enough to get a driver’s license? After he explained the changes to me in a language that might as well have been Swahili, he assured me it was the best on the market and was gone in short order. “Thank you,” I smiled.

At bedtime that night, cats were put out, dogs let in, doors locked, and pillows fluffed. As the last measure before drifting into blissful slumber, I armed the alarm confident in the sophisticated system with my “three dog night” backup.

For the record, my money’s on the dogs for reliability. They do one thing the alarm doesn’t—wake me without fail at 5:30 a.m., reminding me of their urgent need to go out and visit nature.

5:32 a.m. The doggie alarms goes off. With blurry vision, I poke the control panel app with my code. Nothing, followed by the words “Incorrect Code.” A second attempt with glasses was equally unsuccessful. By the third try, the dogs were poised and pointing at the back door with tears in their eyes.

“What next?” I could simply open the door. Within seconds, I would be on the phone with someone from the security company checking on me. “Wait,” I thought. I could also be talking to uniformed police officers. With guns.

I dialed the number for the alarm company and was pleasantly greeted. “XYZ Security, how may I help you?”

“My dogs and I are being held hostage in my house,” I joked about the non-functioning panel. I’ve always considered humor as an ice breaker for pleasant conversation. Please note, however, that humor is not the appropriate response when talking to a home security agent. At 5:30 a.m.

Once we reached an understanding of what constitutes funny and what does not, tests were performed to arrive at a conclusion. The servicing technician had failed to program the new panel with my security code.  

“No problem, I can walk you through it,” the understanding agent said. Her discovery that she was dealing with someone who could not program their VCR, combined with realizing she was talking with someone who still uses a VCR, appeared to dash all hopes of a speedy solution.

We stumbled through it, though. Much to the delight of the agent and me. And three agonizing dogs who burst out the back door when it was finally opened.

Crisis over, my thoughts turned to caffeine. And to Zuckerberg’s philosophy and Grizzard’s humor. With the last sip, I wasn’t convinced that chatting with security system people at 5:30 a.m. was Zuckerberg’s vision of “connecting to every person in the world.”

Especially when I’m wearing brown shoes in a tuxedo world.

—Leon Aldridge

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Aldridge columns are featured in these publications: The Center Light and Champion, The Mount Pleasant Tribune, the Rosenberg Fort Bend Herald, the Taylor Press, the Alpine Avalanche,  the Fort Stockton Pioneer, the Elgin Courier, The Monitor in Naples, and Motor Sports Magazine.

© Leon Aldridge and A Story Worth Telling 2025. Excerpts and links may be used, provided full and clear credit is given to Leon Aldridge and ‘A Story Worth Telling’ with appropriate and specific directions to the original content.

Fondness for a family motoring icon

Let’s leave town on a permanent vacation,
Lock up the house, pack up the station wagon.
— “Outta Here” song lyrics by Kenny Chesney

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“Station wagon—where did that come from,” a friend laughed loudly, talking about her new sport utility vehicle approaching the size of a World War II Sherman Tank.

Station wagons disappeared from dealership model lineups in the mid-1990s. But, for those of us whose first driver’s license predated man’s landing on the moon, there’s usually a lingering fondness for the one-time icon of family motoring.

Two things likely paved the road south for true station wagons. One is the demise of “full-sized” cruiser automobiles that served as the station wagon’s platform. Caprices. Roadmasters. Galaxies. The other was the introduction of minivans and the gussied-up domestication of truck-based work vehicles.

The term “station wagon” originated in the early 1920s during the age of train travel. A wooden wagon body mated to an automobile chassis served to transport people and freight to and from train stations. Hence, “station wagon.” The wood look remained in fashion through the last true station wagons of the 90s, long after metal was the better suited method of manufacturing. The last of the “woody wagons” utilized decorative vinyl to obtain the popular faux wood look.

Old station wagons are cool today. I’ve long harbored a secret lust for a ’55 Ford Country Squire wagon. Black with a red interior.

“My father had a station wagon,” my friend said, recalling where her words came from. “I backed it into a pole and bent the bumper when I started driving. Didn’t think he would notice right away,” she laughed. “I was wrong.”

“We also had one,” I replied. “A 1958 Ford Country Country Sedan. Beige and white. And huge. Dad traded in a ’56 Chevy sedan when he brought the Ford wagon home in about 1960. Mom made frequent after-school trips in those days from Mount Pleasant to Granny’s house in Pittsburg, checking on Dad’s parents.

One memorable day, Mom and Granny were engaged in one of their spirited conversations, I’m guessing over one of my grandmother’s critiques on child-rearing. My grandmother, bless her heart, could ruffle Mom’s feathers in a heartbeat. She really meant well, it was just in her personality to be everyone’s life coach.

Nearing tears over their discussion and deciding it was time to go home, Mom loaded us in the wagon and gave ‘er the gas heading south on Cypress Street. As the motor revved up and the car gained speed, Mom took the column-mounted shift lever and threw it up into the “second gear position.”

Now, that would have have been just fine had she still been driving the recently traded-off Chevy. It was a standard shift. What Mom forgot in her aggravated emotional state was that the wagon was the first car Dad bought with an automatic transmission.

For anyone never having experienced this automotive faux pas, it’s something you long remember. Shifting an automatic transmission car from “D” to “P” at about 20-25 miles per hour and still accelerating produces a conglomeration of noises. The loud and ugly grinding kind coming from under the car. Almost always accompanied by violent lunges when the rear tires start bouncing up and down on the pavement.

Inside the big station wagon, three wide-eyed children flew off the seats and onto the floor. The seat belt craze was still a relatively new fad as a seldom purchased extra cost option. In brief silence after the car screeched to an abrupt and unexpected stop, my mother uttered one of her rarely used vocabulary words usually called on in extreme frustration. Words we kids were sternly forbidden to repeat.

In that moment of silence in the middle of the street, Mom folded her arms on the steering wheel and the tears came. Soft sobs soon became subtle, muffled laughter. Mom had that quality about her.

She carefully moved the shift lever back into “D.” Luckily, the big behemoth continued under its own power. We arrived home without further incidents or subsequent strange noises.

For the next couple of years, the reliable wagon transported everything from camping gear to groceries and Christmas trees to Cub Scouts. It also took us on memorable family vacations including one in the summer of 1960 when we lodged at the Rose Motel in Mena, Arkansas.

Still a year or two away from buying our first television, I was enamored watching the black-and-white set in the motel room. Gazing at the news of John F. Kennedy being tagged by the Democratic Party to appear on the ballot in November against Republican nominee Richard Nixon.

My fondness for old station wagons remains to this day. Maybe one day I’ll find that ’55 Ford Country Squire wagon I’ve been longing for. Perhaps I’ll even offer my friend a ride for old time’s sake.

But I don’t think I’ll let her drive—not if backing up is required.

—Leon Aldridge

(Image above — 1958 Ford Ford Motor Company original advertising piece that today, not only boldly portrays an iconic American automotive vehicle, but also subtly reminds of a long lost lifestyle in the U.S.)

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Aldridge columns are featured in these publications: The Center Light and Champion, The Mount Pleasant Tribune, the Rosenberg Fort Bend Herald, the Taylor Press, the Alpine Avalanche,  the Fort Stockton Pioneer, the Elgin Courier, The Monitor in Naples, and Motor Sports Magazine.

© Leon Aldridge and A Story Worth Telling 2025. Excerpts and links may be used, provided full and clear credit is given to Leon Aldridge and ‘A Story Worth Telling’ with appropriate and specific directions to the original content.

Still wishing for that slower time

“It is strange that the years teach us patience; that the shorter our time, the greater our capacity for waiting.”
— Actress Elizabeth Taylor (1932 – 2011)

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“I’m going up to W.R. DeWoody’s Western Auto,” I remember my grandfather announcing one summer day in the early 1960s.

Summertime was fun time for a kid at my father’s parent’s house in Pittsburg. Sleeping late. Home-cooked breakfast. Playing in the tree-filled yard. Afternoons sailing homemade boats in the city park pond.

“What for,” Grandmother quizzed, pouring another cup of coffee.

“See if they have a mower part,” was his short response.

“Why don’t you call,” she retorted. “We got a telephone now.” The recently acquired black dial-operated device connected to the wall by a cord sat mostly ignored. Sometimes, even when it rang and my grandparents argued over who was going to get up and answer it.

“I’m not going to answer that thing,” I heard Granddaddy say often. “I can’t think of anybody I want to talk to right now.”

The number was University 8-3721. I think. All that was required for a local call, however, were the last four digits. The University 8 was used only to give the operator when dialing “0” to place a long-distance call. Which my grandparents rarely did because it cost an extra 20 cents. If you kept your conversation under three minutes.

“I’d rather see who I’m talking to,” my grandfather said, responding to the “why don’t you call” question. “Looking at who I’m talking to cuts down on confusion, builds relationships, and teaches patience. Ain’t got time to talk to nobody I can’t look in the eyes.”

Granddaddy was on to something more than lawnmower parts.

The rush between Thanksgiving and Christmas makes me yearn for that slower time. When people had patience. Except for kids looking forward to Christmas.

From an adult’s perspective, time speeds up every year. But a child is born into the world counting the days until Christmas.

Once counted as a virtue, patience appears to be diminishing as the number of loose nuts behind steering wheels keep increasing. Like the story I heard last week about a driver being tailgated by a stressed-out woman on a busy street. When the traffic light ahead turned yellow, the driver in front of her stopped as the light turned red. As he should have.

The tailgater was enraged. Horn honking and hollering at the driver ahead. She was still in mid-rant when a police officer walked up and asked her to get out of the car and put her hands behind her head. She was taken to the station and held for questioning before the police officer told her she was free to go.

“We’re very sorry for the mistake,” he said.  “I saw you honking your horn, gesturing at the driver ahead, and cussing a blue streak. Then I saw the ‘What would Jesus Do’ license frame, the ‘Follow me to Sunday School’ bumper sticker, and the chrome Christian fish symbol and naturally assumed you had stolen the car.   

I laughed, but that recalled an incident my mother encountered years ago. Back when I was a kid counting the days until Christmas. South Jefferson Street in my hometown of Mount Pleasant differed from the busy, booming street it is now. There was no bypass loop then. No shopping Center with a parking lot full of cars. Just three businesses facing the street. The Dairy Bar, a tractor dealership, and Larry Talley’s small neighborhood grocery … without gas pumps. Because there was no such thing then as self-service gasoline.

Mom drove her green-and-white ’54 Chevy under the railroad overpass and slowed at the corner at Boatner’s Furniture. The light was turning yellow as she approached, and being the careful driver my mother was, she stopped just as the light changed to red.

Everything was fine until a honking horn blared behind her. A lady emerged from the car and walked to Mom’s car window while hollering about a carton of broken eggs. A conversation ensued between them about whether yellow means slow down and stop or “floor it and run the red light.”

The discussion was short-lived. The light turned green, and other horn honkers egged them both to get on down the road.

I’m a few years down the road myself since that incident. Christmas is coming again, and I’m, once more, wishing for that slower time. When people had more patience. Took time to relax. Weren’t joined at the hip to a telephone.

My capacity for waiting is better, but I still ask God to grant me patience.

I just ask Him to grant it now … please.

—Leon Aldridge

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Aldridge columns are featured in these publications: The Mount Pleasant Tribune, the Rosenberg Fort Bend Herald, the Taylor Press, the Alpine Avalanche,  the Fort Stockton Pioneer, the Elgin Courier, The Monitor in Naples, and Motor Sports Magazine.

© Leon Aldridge and A Story Worth Telling 2024. Excerpts and links may be used, provided full and clear credit is given to Leon Aldridge and ‘A Story Worth Telling’ with appropriate and specific directions to the original content.