Happy 2nd Birthday, Carolyn

May 29, 2011

Thunder so deafening it shook the skin from my bones. The street below flooded with murky brown water, lapping effortlessly up and over the curbs, and the old clay storm pipes of East Lake Forest completely overwhelmed by the massive, sudden onslaught. Nothing man-made can keep pace with this storm. In this ominous darkness it feels like late evening.

At 12:10pm the National Weather Service issued a *severe thunderstorm warning* for our county, expiring at 12:53pm. For 40 minutes, we experienced an immense storm; the cats cowered beneath my bed while I braved the elements out on the balcony taking pictures of the rising street flood. By 12:50pm the bulk of the storm passed, the sky lightened a tiny bit, and the thunder far less injurious, a grumble rather than a shock wave. I wondered how the weather service could get the prediction of the severe weather passing to be so exact, almost to the minute. Amazing.

For most of my life weather reports were pure prognostication – a guessing game. The TV weatherman was only correct about half the time, and no one expected much from him. In my parents’ post WWI youth, weather predictions came from the Old Farmer’s Almanac. Now weather reporting is an elite science, with exact speed and rainfall totals issued long before the sky turns grey. Now I understand my late father’s fascination with “The Weather Channel” when cable TV first came along: a former Navy pilot could sit in his den and watch the weather unfold all over the world. Amazing!

We are utterly surrounded by technology today: GPS satellites track us to within our cars to within 10 inches, and radar watches low-pressure systems approach. Barometers are truly antiquated, just novelties. Radar was a product of WWII, and global positioning satellites a legacy Ronald Reagan’s “Star Wars” methodology in the 1980s. The space program gave us memory foam mattress toppers, freeze-dried food, and pens that write upside down.

My niece will never be a part of a world without technology, a world where one could truly escape to a different city or land and be out of touch. In the early 1980s there were no telephones in our dorm rooms; when a call came in the receptionist would page me over the intercom, and I would take the call at a central phone in the hallway; long distance was still a big deal back then. Today, girls at Mills use their Smartphone to activate a special keypad to enter their dormitories. Metal keys are as antiquated as Cathode ray tubes, being unreachable a grand faux pas to this young techno generation. Heaven forbid one should even try to get away from it all.

So far, this baby boomer is a friend of technology. I adore the computer, with its social networks keeping me almost palpably in touch with my friends and family in California. I could never have worked full time and gone to graduate school in the evenings without a PC at home on which to write papers and do homework. Today, I learn about my illnesses and share information with others – even staying in touch with my doctor 2,000 miles away. I am not alone, ever.

So dear Carolyn, know that your Aunta loves you bunches and that you will never be alone. I promise always to be just a Skype, email, or whatever technology next brings, away.