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Over the Back Fence By HANK HENRY Wading into the world of bits and bytes Never say "never." I can hardly believe it, but we are now a computer family. You�ll notice I didn�t say "computer literate." My wife, Nora, and I have one toe in computer knowledge, while the rest of the family, our kids and their spouses, range from hip-deep to fully immersed. Several years ago, our pastor asked if I used e-mail, as the church was setting up a system to send weekly messages to the parishioners. I told him that our current machine was slow, we didn�t have an e-mail program, and it would probably be a long time before we would upgrade it. "And anyway," I said, "I�m not sure that we would use e-mail that much." It was only a few weeks later that our son Joe persuaded us to buy a modern personal computer with all the bells and whistles, including e-mail. So I went back to the pastor and told him we were entering the world of bits and bytes after all. I went from not having an e-mail program to an electronic address book containing several dozen names and computer addresses in its memory. The first thing I do each morning is to check and see if we have received any messages overnight. If I was a bit of a sluggard in adapting to modern ways, my wife�s move toward modern marvels was glacial. It was not that Nora didn�t need a computer, it was just that she didn�t believe she needed one. She had always written a lot of letters � sometimes several a day � and all were by hand. Then the mother of our pastor, a lady in her 80s, asked Nora if she used e-mail. When Nora said no, the lady said that e-mail was wonderful and that she used it all the time. Nora thought that over and decided that if that lady could operate a computer, surely she could, too. She asked me to help her get started, so I demonstrated how to start the machine and enter programs through icons on the desktop. Then she sent me out of the room and launched into learning by doing. Nora soon learned to write and send e-mails, to access an encyclopedia program, and to find the eBay home page on the Web. She practices every day, but she still writes letters in longhand to many people. About 60 percent of all homes in the United States have computers, and more people are taking the plunge every day. Most of us oldsters enter the computer world in spite of a fear of radically new things. My first contact with it came on the job at the county in the early �80s when I was given a machine that had been replaced in another department by one with more memory. I learned to write letters on it, and it served me well for almost a decade. In the mid-�80s, I bought our first home computer from a mail-order catalog. It was the first portable machine I had ever seen, half again the size of a present-day laptop, but without a battery (you plugged it into an electrical outlet). It didn�t even have a hard drive. There were two openings for large floppy discs: One held the program and the other stored my writing. Compared to today�s machines, it was almost a toy, but I used it for years. At first, I used computers as fancy electric typewriters, rarely venturing into other programs. We are now in our fourth generation of home computers. If, like me, you are a senior citizen and are hesitant to tackle something as daunting as a computer, e-mail or the Web, you�ll be happy to know that recent research indicates that people whose personal contacts are more satisfying are less likely to develop dementia and more likely to recover from strokes faster than those who do not. Imogene Kvist of Medford believes that. She had a stroke one morning, but by that afternoon she had begun to recover, and by the next day she was sent home from the hospital, completely recovered. For this she gives credit to her seniors� computer club and the computer-related activities which kept her mind active. The club is called Senior Adult Computer Education Society, or Senior ACES for short, and it meets weekly in Medford and Ashland. It has a combined membership of more than 500. people. For details, call Imogene Kvist, 858-9748, or Doris Chicano, 772-9451. (Hank Henry is a retired Jackson County commissioner and a former radio and television announcer. Call him at 772-9055.) Mail Tribune Home | Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. | Dow Jones & Co., Inc. | Privacy | Contact Us Copyright � 2000 Mail Tribune, Inc.