talkingroots: Those new-fangled devices

Sometimes after fiddling with new technology, I am reminded of a story about my grandmother Hunt (Anne “Annie” Elizabeth Fears “Mamaw” Hunt). I have a new cell phone which not only lets me make and receive phone calls but send and receive text messages (a la my computer but a bit slower). And, if my way bigger than the buttons fingers happen to accidentally strike a certain key, I am logged on and can surf the web. (I think. I haven’t done anything yet but panic and turn off the phone.) Mamaw was born in the 19th Century before cars, electric lights, air conditioning, radio, and television. I guess you can say that she coped even though in the 1930’s and 1940’s she still could whip up a batch of home-made soap using the iron pot out in her backyard. We had a television in our home in Texarkana by the time I was 10 years old (ca 1953), but Mamaw didn’t. She had an old cabinet radio which sat in her living room.

On one occasion when Mamaw was visiting us in Texarkana, she and my mother (Ozie Mae Moody Hunt) were changing clothes in the room with the television as a man was on screen talking. As mother changed her blouse, Mamaw warned, “Ozie Mae, that man can see you.” That’s the story mother told years later. Not too long after that, Daddy (Deason Lafayette Hunt) bought Mamaw a small portable TV set which sat in her living room. She could turn it on and off, but if something went wrong, she’d just let Daddy know. I know we thought it was humorous that she didn’t understand about television, but it’s likely that my own children have had such thoughts about my dealings with cell phones and the nearly impossible-to-program VCR.
Source: talkingroots.wordpress.com