Tag: technology

Learning to cope with emerging technology

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

– – – – – – –

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

– – – – – – –

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.

It’s the 1970s, all over again

“Sooner or later, everything old is new again.”
― Stephen King, American author known for horror novels.

– – – – – – –

Marveling at the things my grandparents must have seen in their lifetime was something I often did when I was much younger.

Having reached that “grandparent” stage, I find myself drawing similar conclusions about my own life. Remembering things that have faded away. Seeing others miraculously survive to live another day.

Dad’s father was born in 1888. We gathered at Rose Hill Cemetery in Pittsburg to celebrate his life in 1967. During my second year of college when the whole world was still new and changing to me.

My grandfather went to work at 13. Child labor was common then. Ten percent of girls between the ages of 10 and 15, and 20% of boys had jobs to help support the family. The internal combustion engine was gaining popularity, and mass production of powered buggies called “automobiles” was catching on. But only the wealthy could afford one.

Connecticut became the first state to pass a speed limit that year, limiting motor vehicles to 12 mph in cities and 15 mph on country roads.

My grandmother lived until October of 1993. The Wright Brothers flew one of the first airplanes at Kittyhawk in 1903, two years before she was born. She lived to watch man’s first walk on the moon on her black-and-white television. She was never convinced it really happened, though. Truthfully, she was never sure television was real, either.  

My grandmother flew in an airplane one time during her life. With me after I earned a pilot’s license in 1974. She spent most of the 30-minute flight around northeast Texas to see her house in Pittsburg singing “Nearer My God to Thee.”

She went to be with God in 1993 without ever flying in an airplane again — with or without me.

My grandmother, that flight, and life since then crossed my mind a couple of weeks ago. Along with my 1970 Chevrolet pickup in which I drove her to the airport. I loved that truck. My first air-conditioned vehicle. It was equipped with AM/FM radio, tape player, and CB radio. All at a time when a pickup truck was still primarily a utilitarian vehicle.

The woman who watched man walk on the moon via television, however, never owned a radio until after she was married. When she married my grandfather, electricity was still years away from most rural homes. And cars then had little more than headlights, horns, and a hand crank for a starter.

Radios appeared in cars in the late 30s and evolved into sophisticated sound systems over the decades. Basic AM, and FM radio, still survive today despite some electric car makers having dropped AM claiming electromagnetic interference affects the performance of EVs. Don’t count AM out yet, though. Congress has responded by threatening legislation requiring auto manufacturers to keep it.

It was surprising to learn however, that despite rumors of its demise, the last bastion of vehicular radio devices in my pickup that day 50 years ago when Granny consented to a trip into the wild blue yonder has surprisingly made a comeback.

Citizens Band Radio (CB) originated in the U.S. around 1945. Primary purchasers were farmers and the U.S. Coast Guard.

I was introduced to CB radio in the early 1960s as a member of Mount Pleasant’s “Emergency Service” Explorer Scout Post 206. Back when an FCC-regulated call sign, a license and “professional radio etiquette” were required. The two-way radios provided communication with first responders for our scout post aiding at wrecks and fires. Howard Townsend was the Post Advisor, monitoring our radio sets and conversations to ensure regulations were strictly followed.

But CB became a cultural craze in the 1970s. It was depicted in films such as ‘Smokey and the Bandit’ and ‘Convoy,’ on TV shows, and in music. Their use in trucker blockades to protest 55-m.p.h. speed limits and keeping tabs on radar speed enforcement became a thing of legend. And with it all, regulation went out the window when enforcement became impossible. The FCC threw in the towel on licensing in 1983.

CB antenna on author’s 1956 Ford Thunderbird for a trip from Center, Texas to Daytona Beach, Florida in October of 1984.

Popularity rendered CB radio as its own worst enemy. Frequencies were overloaded, making communication difficult. Business users switched to other frequencies before the introduction of mobile phones saw CB’s popularity drop faster than temperatures in a Texas Blue Norther. Everywhere, that is, except among over-the-road truckers, touring motorcycle riders, and classic car clubs traveling to shows and events in caravans.

As a touring cyclist and an old car enthusiast, I knew CB radio never really disappeared. At least not in my garage. And from what I have read recently, CB radio sales are flourishing better than sometime in the 1990s. While “entertainment radio” still evolves, CB has survived. It’s making a comeback to live another day. And it’s the 1970s, all over again.

“Breaker, breaker one-nine. Anybody have eyeballs on that CB I used years ago. Negatory? Well, CBs are back again, good buddy!”

—Leon Aldridge

(Photo credit: From Leon Aldridge personal collection of a few thousand Kodachrome slides. Photo at top of the page: CB Mounted on motorcycle for a trip from Mount Pleasant, Texas to Leadville, Colorado in October of 1975. Safely secured by a state-of-the-art bungee cord. )

– – – – – – –

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.