There are some things technology can’t replace

Since my parents ran a rather large business, the office in our home was the most serious room in the house.

Both my parents had their own desks and there were file cabinets everywhere. So growing up, I learned how to operate various office machines and how to properly organize material so it could be found later. My homework was done on mom’s electric Corona typewriter. I could whiz through files to find important bits of information. All my reports were done according to notes taken in outline form. This has come in quite handy my whole life.

But one of the very last things we got — not until I was high school — was a home computer. And even then, only Mom ever used it. It was a Commodore 64 and Dad never, ever so much as glanced at the thing.

“Paper and pen is all you’ll ever need,” he would say.

I remember when we were told that thanks to the computer, forests would be spared as we used less and less paper. To the contrary, we now have doubled, doubled and then doubled again how much paper we use in schools and offices around the world, all thanks to the computer.

I use computers every day. My job requires that I sit in front of two monitors, flying between more than a dozen programs every few minutes. When I get home, I fire up my laptop to scan the news, touch base with extended family, check my bank account and write these columns. Next to me, my wife is on hers doing her homework. My two high schoolers each have their own laptops to bang out their work.

And yet despite all that, I detest them. Perhaps some of my Dad rubbed off on me, but I think that with every convenience they bring into our lives, they have created a dozen more problems.

I remember when “lost a file” meant somebody had either put it back in the file cabinet out of order or had forgot to put it back after using it. A quick look through the drawers or on a couple desks and, voila! There it is! Not now. Now, “losing a file” means tough cookies. You’ll never see it again. It’s lost, floating around somewhere in cyberland. The only chance you have of ever finding it is if some tech geek somewhere can dig through your computer and perhaps find it. And if he does, maybe it’s been “corrupted.” What the heck is a “corrupted” file? Does that mean it has started extorting other files? Is it running illegal operations within my laptop? And how did it get that way?

My desk never had a “system crash.” I never accidentally deleted my pad of yellow paper, and I never had to worry about running out of memory. (OK, maybe that last one is starting to come true in the last couple years. I do indeed feel as though my brain is full. Oh well, I’ll just start “dumping” the unimportant things in order to make more room. Like the summer I spent trying to dress like the guys on “Miami Vice,” for instance. I’d be more than happy to purge that from my memory banks.)

I can honestly say that I wouldn’t have a problem with more pens, paper and file cabinets in the world and fewer computers. I trust the paper I have locked up in a drawer to always be there far more than I trust some bit of electronic data to remain in this plastic box full of wires, chips and whatever else is in there. On more than one occasion I’ve lost everything thanks to some virus or whatever it was that locked it up tight. And those are the times that I dream about rebooting it the same way my dear old Uncle Mike talks about rebooting a computer.

“Did you try re-booting it?”

“Oh yes, indeed I did. Several times as a matter of fact. With my steel-toed.”

“You really should delete your cookies.”

“Delete my cookies? What’s that gotta do with this stupid computer? Are you sure you know what you’re doing?”

“Perhaps it just overheated. Let it cool down for a while then try again.”

“Sure. Good idea. I thought the same thing. That’s why, after booting it and then re-booting it a half-dozen times, I left it out in the yard overnight in the snow. Should be nice and cool by now. Hold on, let me go dig it out.”

“Did you try to send out a ping?”

“Yep. Used my .22 and pinged it several times. And I gotta say, I feel much better now.”

Oh, well. I may not like them, but I’ve come to accept that they are a necessary part of our modern lives. And so, grumbling and griping, I have forced myself to stay on top of the technology as best I can. Can’t have the kids write me off as a relic just yet, after all.

Ben Compton is a Palmer resident and publishes his column as “Compton’s Corner,” the same title used by his grandmother, Phyllis Compton, a longtime Frontiersman columnist.