Tuesdays with Jody

Martin Luther King Jr., John Lennon, Clint Eastwood, Marvin Gaye, Buzz Aldrin, Marilyn Monroe were all part of the “Silent Generation.” Demographic justification defines this generation with birthdays between 1925 and 1945; it includes the children born during the Great Depression and World War II, and those who fought in the Korean War. William Manchester, a biographer and historian, summarized the generation as “withdrawn, cautious, unimaginative, indifferent, unadventurous and silent.” My experiences over the last few Tuesdays have proved Manchester a fool.

Class lets out at 4:45pm on Tuesday. I’m usually a bit fried from discussions on technology as a disruptive force and heavy with weight of homework assignments due in less than 24 hours, but I agreed to join my professor and a few classmates on a trip to a senior community in Shelburne, Vermont. With promises of a $5 dinner, and good karma, we were tasked with helping seniors with digital technology.

Jody was one of the first residents to enter the room. I looked up from my screen, having downed the vegetarian option at the café and feverishly trying to knock out some part of my hefty homework load in the small window. She smiled, I smiled, and the journey began. “Where should I sit?” she asked. The evening was a bit of an experiment, pre-assigned to topics, uncertain of our destined partners or further arrangement I invited her to take a sit until we were told otherwise.

“Do you have an iPad?” she inquired.

“Well no. But I have an iPhone, it’s the small version of the iPad and I work with a lot of Apple products. I bet I can help.”

“I really need to talk to someone who knows the iPad.”

What happened next was perhaps serendipity… Jeff, my professor surfing the room, formally assigned us to work together. Needless to say, Jody wasn’t thrilled, she had come here, looking for simple, straightforward, easy answers and my lack of an iPad was a strike against me. She whipped out a laundry list of topical questions, sync issues and other problems. I took a deep breath and dug to the core of my inner yogi. I knew I had something to prove and jumped to the plate, reading the first item aloud, “e-books.”

Did you know that the Kindle reader app doesn’t work on the iPad 2? You need the Amazon Cloud Reader app apparently. Long story short, I didn’t know that. Jody studied library sciences, was a librarian and has a love of a book in hand. She really had no interest in reading e-books but she wanted the option. She wanted to know, what was all the rage? Lesson 1. Technology is not seamless. Lesson 2. Technology makes things easier, but it isn’t easy.

Tuesday 1. Downloaded some new apps, managed to get access to e-books against great odds, set up email account and covered podcasting. I was amazed and caught off guard by Jody’s hunger; in her 70’s she was aching for modern technological enlightenment. Along with the hunger was fear and frustration. The more she talked about her six children and numerous grandchildren that more I understood. Jody knows the world is operating a new digital playing field and she does not want to be left behind. She wants her voice heard.

I returned the following Tuesday evening, not quite knowing what to expect. Jody arrived shortly after with her laptop and iPad. It sort of felt magical on Tuesday 2. She had played with some of the new apps and had questions on syncs and social networking. “I tried Facebook,” she said. My eyes bugged out of their sockets. Curiosity is what keeps us young, regardless of what year it says on your birth certificate. Her internal digerati had been awoken. By the end of the evening we were following each other on Twitter and she was planning a trip to Small Dog to buy a MacBook. I assume her Dell laptop has found a dumpster by now. Lesson 3: Technology can be your friend, if you let it.

Lesson 4: Life works in mysterious ways. I’ll be honest, 15 minutes into Tuesday 1 was thinking about wolves wearing sheep costumes. By the end of Tuesday 2, I was feeling a bit sentimental that the experience was coming to a close. Lesson 5: Empathy. It is important to look at the resistance of technology and where it comes from and what feeds it. It is easy to forget that we all use technology with different expectations.

Jody has sent me words of thanks by email. I don’t think she understands that I am grateful for these Tuesdays; sure a lesson in patience, a reminder to be sweet and steadfast, but a powerful experience nonetheless. I am confident that Manchester’s generalization needs to be revisited. Nothing about Jody suggests she is withdrawn. She reads more than anyone else I know and is openly seeking education in her golden years. Perhaps she is a bit cautious but I would argue, well shouldn’t she be? I think over one cup of tea, Manchester would be biting his tongue, unimaginative? Unadventurous? I don’t think so. Silent? Think again sir.