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Prime Times Weekly publication of the Mail Tribune , Medford, Oregon Grandma, YOU'VE GOT MAIL Photo by Jim Craven GETTING HOOKED UP There are several ways to jump into the e-mail ocean: Take a test drive -- Attend a free "Internet Night" from 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. each Thursday night during the school year at Ashland Middle School. You can try your hand at the computer and volunteers will even sign you up for a free electronic mail address so you can start sending and receiving e-mail. Take a class -- New Horizons, at 1221 Disk Drive, Medford, offers one-day, hands-on computer courses most days and evenings. The class costs $179, which includes take-home materials, and you'll have access to a 24-hour help line. For information, call 858-9799. Take one home -- You can buy a decent computer these days for around $1,000, and use the free e-mail service available through Ashland High School. Or you can sign up for Internet service and get your own e-mail address. Most Internet service providers charge about $20 per month. Some offer senior discounts. Look in the telephone directory under "Internet products and services." Join a club -- The Senior Aces, a seniors computer club, meets in Ashland and Medford. Club members share their knowledge and help each other work out computer bugs. For information, telephone Ed Ullrich at 608-9141. Mary Richardson keeps in touch with her grandkids by sending e-mail and electronic greeting cards from her Medford home. Seniors go high-tech to keep in touch with grandkids By MARK FREEMAN A little icon pops up on Ed Ullrich's monitor, and he knows he's about to get the latest scoop on "the world's most adorable granddaughter" -- little Daniella of Whittier, Calif. Grandpa, you've got mail. Sometimes it's a piece of electronic mail from his son, Tom, about 6-year-old Daniella's latest adventure. Often, there are new photos snapped by Tom, scanned into a computer and sent over the Internet to the elder Ullrich's computer in his Medford home. What a time to be a grandparent. "It's certainly a wonderfully enriching medium to use this way, no question," Ullrich says. "We get to hear all about our granddaughter and see the pictures. "They are more a part of our lives this way," he says. The Ullrich clan is not alone. More and more seniors have discovered electronic mail as a new twist in grandparenting, giving them new ways to keep tabs on and interact with the lives of today's kids on their own megabyte terms. At the tips of a senior's fingers are easy ways to send instant messages to the younger generation half a world away. There are electronic greeting cards, which are simple and often free to find on the World Wide Web. Users can send photos instantly across two time zones -- and even turn their computers into video phones. Mary Richardson so enjoys tangling within the World Wide Web that she relies on it to keep in touch with many of her 15 grandchildren, who range in age from 8 to 18 and dot the Western states. She sends free Christmas, birthday, Thanksgiving and Halloween cards with personalized messages, graphics and even music to grand-kids who are online elsewhere in the country. "The cards are fun to do, it's fun for the kids and they're a lot cheaper than going to the store and buying cards," Richardson says. Like many seniors who are late to the computer age, Richardson was intimidated at first by the new technology. But her interest in genealogy led her to the Internet for research. Now, she spends a lot of time corresponding with her grandchildren via e-mail, including forwarding information to help the kids with homework projects. Richardson is as at home now at the keyboard -- and others can learn from her transition. "It sort of depends upon your personality," Richardson says. "Some people are really interested in new things, and others don't want anything to do with it." It's been a tough transition for some members of the generation that worked through the Great Depression and saved the long-distance telephone calls for when someone died or got married. "It's like the telephone years ago," says Doris Chicano, a 62-year-old grandma and computer nut. "People would say, `I don't want that noisy thing in my house.' "Well," she says, "it's time to get on the e-mail bandwagon." New bandwagoneers can test-drive computer e-mail through local clubs or special "Internet Nights" at area schools, where they can get a free e-mail address and start communicating with other e-mailers. Many seniors get online after inheriting a computer from their grandchildren or children, and want to get comfortable with the new medium, says John Sexton, an Ashland library computer expert who helps run a weekly Internet Night in Ashland. Chicano agrees: "There's been a lot of coercion from the younger generation." But once the computer neophytes get used to dealing in dot-coms and bytes, they do well, she says. One of those is Naomi Featheringill, a 73-year-old Medford woman who dove head-first into the computer age two years ago. At first, negotiating the Net was confusing, but she would telephone her grandson for tips and solutions. "The younger generation," she says, "they're always whizzes at this stuff. "But I'd tell him, `When you're giving directions to your grandmother, you say No. 1, push this button. No. 2, push this button. Then No. 3, push this button,"' Featheringill says. Once you get the basic e-mail steps down, Featheringill says, "there's nothing to it." If you have trouble, keep trying. "Just keep pushing buttons," she says. "You can't do anything wrong -- except delete the whole thing." Once the bugs are worked out, many seniors like and use their electronic mail more than the postal version. Ullrich, the grandfather who keeps tabs electronically on granddaughter Daniella in California, says his son "will never earn a medal for letter-writing." But the elder Ullrich wants to keep in close touch with that perfect granddaughter, even if she is about 800 miles away. Ullrich never guessed a computer would help fill the letter-writing void. "I remember that computers were big, monstrous things that took up half a room and sometimes they came up with the right answer to a mathematical question," he says. "I would have never thought I would use one this way," he says. Prime Times front page Mail Tribune front page Copyright � The Mail Tribune 1998, Medford, Oregon USA