When I can't seem to learn

I don't know exactly what the little machine looked like. What I do remember is that its sole purpose in your life or mine was to facilitate this new thing that tons of people had begun to use--e-mail, or electronic mail. That was its sole purpose. It was fashioned to resemble a work desk. The idea was that it would sit on an ordinary desk without getting in the way of other work. All it was meant to do was make the process of emailing easier than it was when it was only one function of a desktop computer. 

We're talking two decades ago here, I'm thinking, although I won't swear by the numbers. What I remember best is that it seemed perfect for my dad, who'd spent most all of his working years in offices. He knew his way around numbers and letters, but this whole computer-thing was sweeping its way into his life without being formally introduced.

I bought the little machine--it wasn't terribly expensive. I figured on a trip home I'd introduce it into the spare bedroom we'd sleep in and he used as an office when no one was using the spare bed. That was the purpose of the cute little email-er--make the processes of the new digital world a little less intimidating.

So the two of us went at it, sitting there at his desk. "Watch the words you type run across the screen here, Dad," I told him. His son was no expert, but this cute little machine was a great little foray into the tech world.

"Now hit 'Return,'" I said, maybe two dozen times. I don't think he was quite 80 years old at the time, about my age maybe. 

A thriving classroom requires a two-way street, equal doses of clear exposition and a willingness to learn. Dad was increasingly impossible. It seemed to me that he wasn't paying close attention. Nothing I said would go in. I was a teacher, for pity's sake. I knew how to find a way into a student's brain. This email thing?--there was no way he couldn't learn. 

My frustration level went through the roof, made me ever-increasingly angry. "Hit return, his return." I tried not to show it, but that frustration piled up like a bank of snow I hadn't seen coming. I'd never begun to imagine that with the help of this little electronic wonder, Dad couldn't learn a ridiculously easy task: to send us emails. Sheesh! Piece of cake or what?

I don't remember ever getting an email from him. That cute little machine got dumped, I'm sure. I don't believe he ever used it.

A few years later, Dad died. On our last visit, I stayed at his hospital bedside for a couple of days while he walked very much alone down a well-trodden path. When he died, his doctor left us a card expressing his sympathy and listing four or five causes for Dad's having passed away; one of those causes was a surprise--"Alzheimer's." 

That was news.

Our TV is just a few years old, our old TV set got soaked in the flood. This new one is a smart TV, I'm told, but it insists on showing us a donut that circles and circles and circles some more. We're trying to understand what a "cache" is and how to live with it, but it ain't easy to learn when you're approaching 80 years.

Ain't at all easy, I know.