The
lower end of high-end technology
by
Robert LaFrance
There is a downside to modern
technology – in fact, there are many downsides (which we used to call
disadvantages) to modern technology; I found yet another one just this morning.
Since we are quite wealthy, we have
two cars, a 2009 Toyota Yaris and a 2014 Toyota Corolla. Luxury on wheels in
both cases.
My wife and I each drive both
vehicles, although one of us does not drive both at the same time. When I drive
the Corolla, I find that the backup camera, when I have remembered to clean the
crud off it, is a valuable tool for, well, backing up.
This morning, thinking I was heading
for town, I jumped into the Yaris and started backing it up. I couldn’t
understand why the image on the backup camera wasn’t changing. I kept backing
up anyway. It had to change sooner or later, right?
Too late I realized that I had been
looking at the car’s radio, which is situated at the same place in the Yaris as
the backup camera in the Corolla. Did you know that 2002 Chev pickup trucks can
really put a crimp in one’s plans, if one backs out in front of one? Well, it
can.
***********************
I rarely watch hockey, even in
Stanley Cup Playoff time, but when I do I am amazed at the absolute frenzy
sports announcers go into about statistics. It’s the same with soccer, my
favourite sport, but let’s stick to hockey for now.
“Vinnie, we have to keep our eye on
Leaf winger Olaf Pingous,” said announcer Edgar Sunderland during one game.
“Did you know that this year he hasn’t scored a slapshot goal between minute 21
and minute 29 in any game that takes place in a city whose name has more than
four vowels?”
“I hear you, Edgar. And how about
that Detroit goalie, Al Drumbeat? I just looked into the lists of ‘firsts’ and found
that he was the first left-handed NHL player to score 20 goals before the 40th
game of a season ending in the digit ‘8’. That would be 1988, when he was
playing for the Mighty Ducks.”
They went on and on, outlining other
statistics and major milestones (even though we are supposed to use the metric
system) in various players’ careers. I’ll leave you with one more:
In the year 2007, Jerry Feinstin Jr.
of the Toronto Maple Leafs, later the Dream Team of 2016-17, scored a goal in
minute 18 of the first, second and third periods. A hat trick to dream of. The
Leafs were playing the Detroit Red Wings, whose announcer, Goergio Fennault,
also pointed out that Feinstin was the first player without a beard who ever
wore pink skates while eating a Tim Horton’s chili dog between the second and
third periods. A defenseman name Chuck Heppner had done a similar thing in
1997, but between the first and second periods.
**********************
I do a lot of reading, as the
faithful and long-suffering consumer of this column knows, and one book I read
at least four times a year is ‘Rural Musings’ by a New Brunswick gent, now deceased, named Rolf
Munroe from Taymouth. He also wrote a column by that name from 1959 to 1963 in the Daily Gleaner.
He had the country life down pat.
The first chapter is entitled ‘Country Grapevine’ and hankered back to the days
when – long before email, Facebook, cellphones, and even private telephone
lines for everyone – the news got out somehow. Probably more quickly and more
accurately than it does today.
“The deepest routes of the grapevine
stem from the fact that country communities, or most of them, have no police
force, no fire department, no resident doctor or local hospital. When disaster
strikes in the country, it is the victim’s neighbours who come to the rescue…”
Of course he was talking about communities much farther away from these
services than most of us are today. Munroe said that somehow the word spread
faster in those days than it does today, and he died long before Snapchat and
Twitter.
He described how snake (cedar)
fences were constructed, how, in those days before texting and GPS, children
actually made paths through the woods without using their thumbs, how important
railways were for local travel, and how impossible it was to put stovepipes
together once that had been taken apart. He said that in those days houses had
parlours, or ‘front rooms’ rarely used except for funerals, and kerosene lamps
and lanterns, which he said were becoming obsolete.
I highly recommend you read this
great book, but I have to argue with him about the obsolescence of kerosene
lamps and lanterns. Here in this estate, anticipating power outages, we own
four kerosene lamps and two kerosene lanterns, plus lots of candles. We can’t
all be right all the time.-end-
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