(A baby boomer’s tongue-in-cheek opinion about technology)

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It’s a jungle out there, a crazy world filled with terms that didn’t exist just a few years ago. I grew up in the corporate world and I was as computer-savvy as they come without being (a) fresh out of college, and (b) armed with a degree in Information Technology or IT (which I understood like I understand ancient Sumerian).

I had an Apple Mac before it was fashionable. I bought a Lisa (who remembers those??) for the office, which turned out to be an expensive albatross that never lived up to its hype. I fought tooth and nail when the office converted from Apple to PCs. I hated our new towers (someone had to explain that those were the things sitting on the floor by our desks), and now, twenty-something years later, I’m an independent author and happily pecking away on my MacBook Air.

My life as CEO of my own company was a technological dream. A phone call away were Randy and Jeremy, each twenty years my junior, filled with knowledge and totally unafraid that if you pressed a mysterious button marked “ESC” or “CTRL” everything in your computer would disappear. They worked in IT and they fearlessly tackled every problem.

When the company sold and I was on my own as an author, I missed Randy and Jeremy. I was adrift in a sea of unfamiliar terms, apps and programs. I hardly knew my software from my malware, and I couldn’t remember if you bought groceries on Instagram or Instacart. I did learn early on that you can buy anything – absolutely anything on earth – at Amazon, and it will arrive within hours or at most tomorrow.  I firmly believe that someday Amazon will own the world, and whoever is head of Amazon will also serve as President of the United States.

I learned about viruses – not the COVID kind, but equally as deadly. Every website was a potential black hole as I clicked “purchase” to buy some underwear while teenagers in Uzbekistan gleefully sucked money from my bank account.

Thank God my children became adults and my grandson Jack became eight years old. He calls me Abuelo – grandfather in Spanish, because he’s bilingual – and he’s like a miniature IT guy but in a different way. If he doesn’t know exactly how something will work – like what happens when your monitor suddenly turns blue – he’ll push me aside and try things. To him, a computer is a tool. To me it’s a mystifying pathway to a million places, but it will turn on you like a rabid coyote if you poke it in the wrong place.

“Should we back everything up before you start?” I ask, and he gives me this raised-eyebrow look.  “I did that, Abuelo,” he mutters as he clicks this key and that until everything goes black.

“Well, you’ve done it now,” I say, just as my computer rises from the dead. My sixty-thousand-word manuscript is still just as I left it. My three hundred pages of research still sit in a folder, and I think, “Damned if that kid didn’t make everything work.”

Jack was asking for my password before he was five. I saw no harm in allowing him to open my iPad when he came over, and when something unfamiliar appeared in my Amazon shopping cart, I thought it was my error at first. But I didn’t even shop for toys online.

“Jack, did you put something in my cart?”

“Yes, Abuelo. I was thinking you might let me buy it.”

At least he didn’t buy it without asking. I am certain he could have entered his name and home address, even at that age, and he complained when I changed my password and kept it to myself. (I do notice his eyes watching the keys as I enter it, though. You gotta watch these kids like a hawk.)

Now Jack’s eleven. He can find photos from five years ago, scroll through websites faster than a speeding bullet (that’s a term from the fifties, in case you’re a kid yourself), and virtual learning has added much to his already vast computer knowledge.

I’m in my seventh decade of life. I know a lot about a lot of things, but children have abilities I can only wonder at. When I was eleven, life was different. June Cleaver was in the kitchen, Dad went to work every day and I rode my bike to the library to check out a book about how to build an animal trap.

Jack’s world is vastly different, less wonderful and serene than mine but more interesting and diverse. In sixty years when he is where I am today, I can’t even guess what incredible things his own grandson will help him overcome.

BILL THOMPSON is an award-winning author of The Bayou Hauntings series, along with The Brian Sadler Series, The Crypt Trilogy, and The Outcasts. His latest installment in The Bayou Hauntings series, The Proctor Hall Horror, is available now. Learn more about Thompson and subscribe to his mailing list by visiting www.billthompsonbooks.com, or connect with the author on Facebook (@billthompsonbooks) and Twitter (@BThompsonBooks).