My Dad had an adventure of a different kind last week and ended up in hospital. A bowel obstruction is serious enough in a younger person but in a man of 87 with a heart condition it's an even bigger worry. Thank God it resolved itself without the need for surgery. Like many events in Dad's life, what could have been a mountain ended up being just a bump in the road. But it got me to thinking about what a loss it will be to the whole of society when all the old-timers like my Dad are gone. The vast wealth of life experiences and information they have will be accessible no more. If modern society took a tumble, and computers, technology and all that jazz became unusable, many of us wouldn't know how to survive. Loads of people can't even remember a phone number they ring every day because they rely on their mobile to store that information. Dad can remember the first phone number he ever had. We use google to find out every thing from movie times to job vacancies. In my Dad's day, if he wanted information, he'd just go into the nearest pub and ask around. GPS has left us with about as much sense of direction as a lopsided weather vane in a high wind. Whereas my Dad could find his way anywhere with nothing more than a vague idea or a mud map scratched on a coaster by an illiterate drunk (that's what you get for asking around in a pub). So if technology ever crashes, and according to Dad it will—"It can't last" he says, then I hope there are enough of these old fellas left to show us how to live in the real world.
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