New computer

Growing up in the 40s/50s in South Jersey I would never have dreamed of something like a computer. Then when I went to college, the computer was a "new" baby, but was too big for anyone to own one, we only had cards with little chads in them telling the mammoth main frame what to do. I had a difficult time grasping that one. I was still in the typewriter age -- at least I had graduated to an electric typewriter.

Well, 50 years later I find that I am pretty computer literate -- NOT programming literate. Let's face it, I'm a user, just like I was a typewriter user back in the good old days. However, I could take apart my manual typewriter and put it back together, seriously. I could pretty much maintain my electric typewriter as well. Back then an electric typewriter cost as much as a laptop (mini) does today, but when the average take-home pay for me and my peers was maybe $60 a week, buying a new typewriter every few years because of some glitch was not even an option.

So why am I writing all this in Runnemede Remembered? Well, my first job was as a typist for a man who attended our church. Then my second job was a typing job for Mr. Softee. My third job was a sales job for Strawbridge's, my fourth job was as a temporary person in whatever typing position my overseer sent me. Get the picture. All those jobs originated in Runnemede.

Now I know that Runnemede has joined the computer age. No longer is the library a small card file with 500 books, no longer do the banks write deposits and withdrawals in long-hand. No longer do the check-outs at cash registers require the cashier to divine the change in a transaction.

I am writing this because I have to get a new computer. My laptop is shot, almost, and it's more frustrating to use it that to not use it, but then I miss so much --BLOGs, e-mails, internet, information about the upcoming 50th reunion of the first class to go all four years through Triton.

Progress, it's amazing, frustrating, time-consuming -- but I love it. Be back when I get the new computer up and running.

ttfn