One of our goals while in South Texas was to introduce my father-in-law to the wonders of e-mail. He’s been hearing rumours of e-mail for years and all his children and grandchildren are avid users of it. Now he’s acquired an e-mail appliance for Christmas and he needs to learn how to use it. By virtue of the timing of our trip, Tricia and I became his teachers.
We’ve been expecting this for a while. The snowbird culture that he is a part of reminds me of schoolchildren. They have a very limited view of the world. They learn about new things primarily from each other by word of mouth, but once something catches on it becomes a fad that everyone has to have. So far the Internet has escaped the interest of his clique and there seems to be no imaginable use whatsoever for most other computer applications, but e-mail is catching on.
Which might make the Mailstation a good choice. It’s dialup, but all he has to do is press one button and it dials in, sends and retrieves all the mail and then hangs up. It can even be set up to connect automatically at set times.
He already had it set up by the time we get there and has even sent out a few e-mails. What more could there be to learn, you ask? Well actually a lot it turns out. We have to explain the address book, and correct most of the entries he has already made to it. And of course we have to explain spam. Luckily, the machine must have a pretty good spam filter, because so far most of the usual suspects have not shown up. What’s mostly showing up are the forwarded e-mails and chain letters.
He has a dozen items in his in-box already and with our help he gets through them all. Most he replies to with one or two words. He’s not a verbose kind of guy.
Some of the mail he gets has “commercials” below the actual message. This is the stuff that Yahoo and others attach below your mail and which you probably don’t even notice. But it completely throws him for a loop. We go over the explanation for this at least three times while we are there. I guarantee that he will ask about it again some night when he calls.
The trip is not all work though. He has found a wonderful little restaurant just down the road in the town of Donna. He calls it Martha’s after the proprietor, but the sign outside says Taqueria del Sol. They have the best migas I’ve ever tasted.
Comments (8)
I think that’s wonderful that he’s learning about e-mail and seeing the benefit. Good for you for taking the time to show him and help him along.
Carl, my husband, and I volunteer at a seniors’ lodge and taught a basic computer class for 13 weeks. The “regulars” enjoyed all the technology (we introduced them to some blogs as well) but just didn’t have the confidence to try it themselves. We’re hoping to do a refresher course and maybe start a communal blog for all the residents. I’d love to see their worlds expand — think of the friends they could make! Every retirement lodge should have several computers AND the staff to help them use them, in my humble opinion.
Migas?
And look at those wonderful clay pots stacked outside there. They cost a fortune up here. Bet they are really cheap down there!
Migas is eggs scrambled with tortilla chips, cheese, onions, and jalepenos. One of my favorite breakfast dishes.
If memory serves the pots were $9.
It’s amazing where e-mail is finding its way these days. I watched a program last year of a small villange in India where no one has money for computers and e-mail is something from another planet, but the local school teacher, in order to get the locals used to computers, set up a public computer set in an alcove in her house wall, where anyone can come by and play with the machine. The children are especially intrigued by it and have begun to spontaneously learn how to make the thing work. E-mails may yet be beyond them for now, but this is a start.
hi bill .. my first visit to your site .. enjoyed this discussion on seniors and email.
I was delighted when my mother, at age 67, allowed me to introduce her to this wondrous method of instant communication. Many of the features were confusing for her, but we were able to assist her in getting the hang of it enough that she could exchange emails with friends and family.
I now miss those emails. At 73 now, she has Parkinson’s disease and some mild dementia, and is no longer able to communicate via email. She misses it so much that we have taken to sending emails anyway, which her caretaker prints out and reads to her every day. We are blessed to have this wondrous tool available to us, if for no other reason to allow a mother to feel loved.
I must say, I wish I had appreciated it more while I still could see her emails drop into my IN BOX. Awareness of gifts sometimes comes later. Speaking of gifts, thanks for letting me drop by.
I saw that show also (computer in wall). Amazing! The migas sound tasty.
I’ve been to a place that looks just like that down in the Imperial Valley!
Terra cotta pots at $9.00. 16 inchers, by the size of the door. Wow. Yeah, up here those are around $30.00 or so. Love those lattice ones.
And I am constantly amazed by how my mother drops everything into one paragraph when she writes an email or adds a comment. She was once an english teacher, so this odd mangling of text is strangely out of place. She just shrugs and tells me she doesn’t speak in perfect english, and her emails mirror her speach patterns.
Heh.