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by Curt Kovener   
Technology is great when it works. But when it doesn’t it quickly becomes a teeth gnashing, expletive mumbling, angry glaring time at the composite of plastics, wires and energy we have come to use every day.
Computers, cellphones, and other such technologies are supposed to make life easier, more productive and easier. And they do. But they also make life more hectic, busy -frustratingly more busy- but frequently not more productive.
After a particularly blood pressure raising day of multiple encounters with slow computers, sketchy cell signals, and inconsiderate drivers, I was grateful to sit in my recliner with a generous pour of bourbon. And I got to thinking about those more simple times in my youth sans technology. (You know the time when we were all wishing we were older so we could be an adult and do whatever we wanted.)
•I rather like the time when decisions were made by going… “eenie-meeny-miney-moe” or “One Potato, Two Potato…”
•Mistakes were corrected by simply exclaiming, “Do Over!”
• ‘Race issue’ meant arguing about who ran the fastest.
•It wasn’t odd to have two or three ‘Best Friends.’
•Saturday morning cartoons weren’t 30-minute commercials for action figures.
•”Oly-oly-oxen-free” made perfect sense.
•Spinning around, getting dizzy, and falling down was a cheap and safe way of getting “high”.
•Back when the worst embarrassment was being picked last for a team.
•War was simply a card game we played.
•Tea Parties were for little girls with imaginary friends.
•Baseball cards in the spokes transformed any bike into a motorcycle. (I wonder how many now very valuable Mickey Mantle rookie cards were obliterated by our desire to be cool?)
•Taking drugs meant orange flavored chewable aspirin.
•Water balloons were the ultimate weapon whether dropped from above like a bomb, launched long distance by a bicycle innertube, and simply heaved like a grenade.
•Getting “Double Dog Dared” was the ultimate challenge to one’s courage. (Or in retrospect, stupidity.)
Then after thinking about all of that and longing for a return to simpler times, I had to take a cellphone call and then check my e-mails.