By Tim “Shoe” Sullivan

Hey, I admit it. I’m what you would call “old school”. Anything to do with modern technology is Greek to me. You wanna talk about computers? Don’t look here. Way back in high school at Pacelli, computer classes didn’t exist. Computer classes? Hell, we barely had electricity.

Several years ago, a couple of friends of mine (Jeff Wenndorf and Jordan Dumke) tried to show me how to use a computer.

They said, “First you gotta boot it up.” I replied, “Wouldn’t it be better if I pushed the start button?”

They said, “No. Boot it up first.” Took me an hour and I never did find the boot button.

Then they said, “If you wanna type something, go to your menu.” I told them I’d eat later when I was done typing.

Later on, I asked them, “Is this the place we put the photos?” They looked at me sternly and replied: “No! That’s where you put the pictures!”

Sorry.

They told me I had to find a browser. Hell, I thought he was still with Sha Na Na.

The only thing I knew about Apple was it was red and you ate it.

Laptop. Desktop. Search engine. Grab the mouse and right click. Might as well have been talking Russian.

“Okay,” I asked, “What if I wanna look something up?”

“No problem,” they informed me. “Just Google it.”

I replied, “Wouldn’t it be easier if I just looked it up?”

All these terms. They told me to use the hard drive. To me, a hard drive was going on a long trip.

“So what if I have a problem?” I inquired.

“Go up to your favorites and click on tools,” they said. I thought if I pressed the button for tools, a small screwdriver might pop out.

And don’t get me started about “logging out”: The only reason I never log out of anything is because I don’t know how to log back in.

“And make sure you plug in your modem. ” Modem? I’m lucky if I remember to plug in my toaster.

The problem is that I’m just from a different era. These days, a four-year old can pick up his phone and take a picture and look at it two seconds later. Back in the day, I was just happy if the phone rang and someone was on the other end when I answered it. For pictures, you would use your camera and take the film in to the drugstore and hope to get it back in two weeks.

I’d walk into a bar and see a college girl “texting” or pushing buttons on her I-phone or smart phone or cellphone or whatever they call it. I’d ask her, “So who are you calling?” She pointed to a girl two chairs away and said, “I’m calling Marge over there.”

Huh?

Couldn’t she just walk over three feet away and talk to her?

I’m always behind the curve electronically. Learned how to use a 8-track player so they stopped making them and came out with boomboxes that played cassette tapes. They they played CDs. Then I got a VCR that played VHS tapes and a DVD player that plays whatever goes into those things. Sony. Dell. Geez Louise!

I’m lost when it comes to anything you have to plug in. I used a shredder once and the paper came out fine.

And don’t get me going about email. I still haven’t figured out where you put the stamp.

And Jordan left me with this final sobering thought: “Just remember. If you want to shut off your computer, hit the start button.”

Sure.