"Progress--the stride of God." (Victor Hugo)

.....While at the mall one day at Town Center in Boca Raton, I noticed a lot of young people walking around with wires growing out of their ears. Not only that weird sight, but I noticed some boys with their underwear evident accompanied by partial views of their backside. I couldn't understand why China couldn't manufacture boxers that had enough material to cover everything that requires covering. And, as for the girls--I marveled at how they were able to get into their jean shorts. I remember back in the olden days when the girls wore what then were called "short shorts", and at the time it was scandalous, but these shorts today are made the size of a pair of worn gloves. Not to be Puritanical, but the Victoria's Secret shop featured half naked models in the windows with loud colored bras and scanty panties. But what I really wanted to know about were those wires hanging from the kids' ears.

.....I finally learned from a 91 year old grandfather seated on a bench awaiting his wife as she shopped that the little black box at the end of the wires was called an "iPod". With 160GB of storage, iPod classic is the take-everything-everywhere iPod, with space for up to 40000 songs, 200 hours of video, or 25,000 photos. 40,000 songs!! When I was a kid a millennium ago, I thought I was fortunate to be able to buy a Glenn Miller 78 record. One. That's it--one. But since that time, other musical marvels followed: the 45, the 33, the 8 track (Ugh!), Cassettes, and CDs. Each advance designed to make the previous one obsolete so that you had to buy the newbie.

.....Way back then, the family gathered around the radio to listen to Jack Benny, Fred Allen, the Green Hornet, and the "Shadow Knows". Until I got my first view of television at the New York World's Fair in 1939. I even got a chance to see my picture on it. When I was finally able to afford a TV set about eight years' later, it was a 10 inch screen showing black and white pictures. The biggest deal was Milton Berle on Tuesday nights. In order to make the screen bigger, we bought a magnifying glass to put over it. We were only kidding ourselves. Then came COLOR! How amazing! Even the movies had COLOR. No one then or since has been able to explain to me how that works.

....,and then came the "cell phone". And that is why you frequently see someone driving a car with a hand on one ear and a hand holding the wheel with the other. A neat, and dangerous trick without a net. And in the passenger seat is a 12 year old fiddling with an"i-Phone". The iPhone functions as a camera phone, including text messaging and visual voicemail. It is also a portable media player, with e-mail, web browsing and wi-fi connectivity. Each of the "buttons" on the keyboard is square, colored, and has an icon with the theme of its function. I don't have one, and I don't believe I want one, although I did eventually succumb to the computer. Anyway, no one has ever explained to me how these things work. Oh, pardon--I have received explanations, but I never understood what they were saying. I'm not a techie--I'm a poet.