Progress

He was a figure of fun as fogies often are.  From boyhood he’d learned his skills – how to put on the harness and hitch up the horse, how to doctor it when it was ailing, how to attach the feed bag.  The automobile required a different routine.  You had to choke it, crank it, throttle it, shift it, and break it.  You had to adjust the spark.  His hands knew how to slap, tug, and twitch the horse’s reins, but the steering wheel was something entirely new. 

Accessories for the horse and wagon included saddle soap to make the leather subtle, barn cats to keep rats and mice out of the oats, and a pick to pry foreign matter out of the hooves.  A curry comb kept the animal looking spiffy, and of course from time to time it had to be shoed. 

He might call the car Dolly or Nell, but he couldn’t stroke its warm velvety nose or bring it a knobby apple from the barnyard tree.  The iron tires of the wagon didn’t get a puncture and have to be changed on a wet day.  With an automobile you had to check the water in the radiator and the oil in the crankcase, the gas in the tank, and the car didn’t know the way home from the tavern late at night. 

On the other hand it was faster.  You didn’t have to feed and water it or muck out its stall on days you weren’t using it.  It wouldn’t spook at a windblown sheet of newspaper.  If the car was wrecked, it might have to be towed away, but it didn’t need to be humanely shot. 

The automobile was what our great grandfathers called progress.  It’s a word you don’t hear much these days, although technology forges ahead.  I’m thinking these thoughts because I have a new computer, and my old version of Word won’t work with Windows 7.  My mouse used to go smoothly to the button I wanted, but for now I have to search the cluttered tool bar.  I feel awkward and unskilled.

When I got my first computer with Windows I mourned my small, but hard won collection of DOS commands that had been made obsolete by drag-and-drop.  I don’t miss them now.  On the day I got this new computer I learned that there’s already Windows 8, but 7 will do.  When it has to be replaced I’ll regret having to adapt all over again. 

Mental challenges keep the old synapses firing and provide exercise for the brain. Naturally we resist.  Fogiedom is often about letting go, but it also requires accepting the new.  We grumble, but we soldier on.