On 6/26/2013 10:21 AM, Dave Smith wrote:
> On 26/06/2013 9:01 AM, S Viemeister wrote:
>> On 6/26/2013 8:08 AM, Nancy Young wrote:
>>
>>> I caught her at my brother's place checking out facebook. She's 85.
>>> I shudder to think what trouble she'd get into if we could teach her
>>> to use a computer.
>>>
>> My mother was using a computer into her 80s.
>>
*Into* being the operative word. Apparently she started using one well
before that.

> When my father was 75 his electric typewriter broke down and I made the
> mistake of suggesting he get a computer and printer. He just was not of
> the computer generation. He was a mechanical whizz. He could do most
> trade work... electrical, body work, masonry, woodworking, plumbing,
> automechanics. He had been an aircraft mechanic during the war and then
> trained for aircrew and got his wings. But dammit, at that age he just
> could not get the hand of computers. Every time he had to write a letter
> I would have to hop in the car and drive 15 miles to their house to
> guide him through it. After he died and my mother moved into a condo we
> set the computer up in her spare room but I don't think she ever touched
> it.
>
My father started making noise about wanting a computer when he was in
his 70's. My brothers and I collectively groaned... 1300 miles away we
could just imagine the phone calls asking us to try to figure out what
he'd done. LOL

Dad was very smart. He had a degree in Engineering and was a math wiz.
A computer simply would have been beyond his ken. (Besides which, he
couldn't type.) My mother put her foot down. She said it would just be
one more thing for her to dust.

Jill