Digital Old Testament becomes test of wills
Last winter I borrowed a four-DVD set about great characters of the Old Testament from one of our associate pastors.  I thought the DVDs might be fodder for a series of Sunday school lessons.  We rotate teachers from our class and I teach four weeks a year.

 My new computer can play DVDs but I had not yet attached speakers.  That was a simple task — I thought.  However, I have yet to find anything about computers to be simple.

My new computer has three triple outlets, variously labeled with something related to sound.  I chose one and proceeded to play a DVD.  No sound issued.  Even more unsettling, a window appeared that said, “You have the wrong area code for this DVD.”

 Why “area code”?  I wasn’t making a long distance call.  At least I did not think I was.  Not only did I not know how to change the area code but I had no idea which area code I should use. It seemed that the DVD set must return to the church.

But it didn’t. At least not for awhile.

You see, the Christmas season is a thief of time.  (I think I should apologize to Mr. Shakespeare here.)  Helping to prepare three gallons of seafood gumbo for two family get-togethers, trimming the Christmas tree, helping decorate the house and manning our daughter’s table at the Martin Senior Center’s first bazaar consumed a lot of time in addition to my usual busy-work retirement duties.

As a result, the DVD set lay fallow beside my computer.  It could be returned after Christmas. 

Most years, I buy Carolyn something and that’s the extent of my Christmas shopping.  This year was different.

Carolyn’s pain problems limit her walking and standing so I did a significant, though minor, part of our Christmas shopping.

One of my tasks was to buy a DVD player for a grandchild. While standing in line to pay, I suddenly realized that for $60 I could have my own DVD player.  Forget the computer.  I could use the TV.  I came home with two DVD players.

I unpacked mine and hooked it into our TV — a simple task.  I never learn.  Nothing electronic is ever simple.  I got no sound.  I got no picture.  I got nothing.  I was stymied. I would have to read the unintelligible owner’s manual — a sentence of 30 minutes of confusing, poorly written English interspersed with Spanish, French and Japanese (or is it Chinese?).

I thought, “My grandchildren from Georgia will be here in four days.  They can hook it up.”  And so, I just let the player and its owner’s manual lay dormant, awaiting the touch of an expert hand.

The day they arrived, I asked 17-year-old Jacob to fix my DVD player and in five minutes it was happily playing DVD’s.

 The Georgia grandchildren left for home on Christmas Eve.  As they were packing, Carolyn asked 15-year-old Leigh if she could make her new cell-phone ring louder, something we had failed to accomplish. 

Within two minutes, not only had Leigh increased the ring volume but also had demonstrated all the choices for ring sounds and had programmed the one Carolyn liked best.

Carolyn asked, “How did you know how to do that?”

Jacob replied, “Grandmother, we were born knowing how.”

 Retired pediatrician Bill Fleet now spends his days working with wood (“mostly making sawdust”), fishing (“but not very well”), puttering around his garden and writing. He has lived in Brentwood since 1974. Click here to read his recent columns.