Wednesday, November 18, 2015 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon
Of a certain age…..
By Sue Stafford
Columnist
Playing impromptu games
of softball or tag, taking long
bike rides with friends, or
alone, with no particular des-
tination (and no helmets), or
building forts in the woods
from tree limbs were the stuff
of my childhood in 1950s
Portland. No cell phones,
minimal TV time, no com-
puters, no Facebook, no tex-
ting, no Twitter.
My parents generally
weren’t worried about where
I was every minute of the
day. The fear of a dangerous
stranger wasn’t on my radar.
I wasn’t afraid to ask for help
from adults I didn’t know,
trusting that they would help
me — and they did.
I was basically wrapped
in a safe cocoon of innocence
with very little impact from
the world beyond my famil-
iar boundaries. There was no
ability to see breaking news
as it was happening. I was
spared trying to make sense
of bombings, riots, mass
shootings, police brutality, or
terrorist attacks abroad or in
my own country. My world
was a safe place.
With the advent of TV,
I was able to see Ozzie and
Harriet humorously deal with
everyday family happenings.
The Mickey Mouse Club
was populated with happy,
smiling faces of kids like me
singing and dancing.
Elected officials gener-
ally conducted themselves
in a dignified manner, work-
ing to promote the common
good through collaboration
and compromise, or so it
appeared. The presidential
conventions actually meant
something and we listened to
them on the radio, and later
watched on television along
with millions of interested
Americans.
Where have those days
gone? How did we get to the
point of overscheduled chil-
dren with little free time for
imagination and unstructured
play? There are too many
families living with unbe-
lievable work and monetary
pressures, with parents hav-
ing to work and not able to be
around when their children
get out of school. We are
all electronically connected,
and at the same time sadly
disconnected.
Don’t misunderstand
me. All was not sweetness
and light in the ’50s. Each
decade has its own set of
problems. But it seems that
as technology has advanced
to “improve the world” and
enable more and quicker con-
tact around the globe, we are
actually becoming in many
ways more isolated from
human interaction.
Texting has replaced face-
to-face conversations. The
joy of anticipating the arrival
of that long-awaited hand-
written letter has given way
to quick emails sent out to
groups of people, many of
whom I don’t even know.
On Facebook I am able
to see more about someone’s
life than I might even want to
know, often of little impor-
tance. Facebook and texting
may take the place of a pleas-
ant exchange spent in anoth-
er’s company or talking with
them on the phone, catching
up on what makes our friend-
ship special.
I plead guilty to this
myself.
While everyone is glued
to some kind of screen, what
happens to the very fiber of
the family — the conversa-
tions around the dinner table,
the quiet times before sleep
when children often share
their secrets and parents are
able to look into their eyes
and truly “see” them? I won-
der about the children who
grow up seeing the back of
their parent’s head in the
front seat of the car, while
staring at a video on the
drop-down screen. Often I
see children mutely walk-
ing behind a parent who is
11
engaged on their cell phone
rather than with their child.
Life is worth living, not
because of all my gadgets
and high tech, not because of
my busy-ness and activities,
not because of what I own
or do. Life is worth living
because of my deep relation-
ships with those I love and
who love me. The human
connection that feeds my
soul and gives meaning to
my life is really all that will
matter when I come to the
end of my time on earth.
I can’t go backwards and
return to the “good old days”
(nor do I really want to), but
I can bring some good things
forward to the present. I can
at least occasionally unplug,
slow down, write a letter to
someone I care about. I can
turn off the TV, the computer,
and the cell phone. Instead, I
can read a book, enjoy the
silence, have a heart-to-heart
conversation, go outside,
maybe even play a game of
tag.