William Marvel [12/04/2006]

By William Marvel

The older I get, the farther away from technology I want to live. The heyday of optimum technological advancement flourished just before I was born, and I luxuriated in its excesses, but I had not yet reached middle age when technology started to become cumbersome and confining.It started with cars. In 20 years of driving jalopies I probably tallied a solid week or two alongside Americas highwaysfiddling with carburetors, replacing split hoses and broken fan belts, or rapping on stubborn solenoids. Fellow travelers almost always stopped to help, and we who received such aid returned it to others at every opportunity. Breakdowns offered an early introduction to the interdependence of the human community, and they usually provided a wholesome experience despite the frustration and inconvenience.Then came word processing. I became aware of it at a lecture, when an aspiring writer asked me about my writing program. I was accustomed to inquiries about literary style or the validity of source material, but when faced with that puzzling question I replied that I generally wrote from right after breakfast until bedtime, with a couple of hours off to cut firewood or weed the garden. I resisted the trend toward electronic composition for a decade, writing books on legal pads and typing the final drafts on a manual typewriter. Publishers eventually began demanding manuscripts on disks, though, and I accepted the gift of an ancient Zenith console. Into that machine I typed an entire book, before discovering that I couldnt get it out without buying a newer machine that supported an acceptable printer. The process consumed weeks, and cost a sizable quantity of my remaining hair.Computers have contributed mightily to the deterioration of handwriting, spelling, and grammar. They offer undeniable advantages: printing a manuscript takes a few hours instead of two months, and subsequent drafts introduce no new typographical errors. Still, I cant work without electricity, and we lose power out here pretty frequently. Worst of all, that diabolical machine brought cyberspace, with all its inane distractions, dubious information, and dangerously insecure communications.My latest laptop now elicits laughter from the electronically hip. Ive worn out two printers and three keypads, and spare parts are scarce. A day of reckoning looms, I know, but the wasted expense of a premature upgrade horrifies me as badly as the idea of installing software and finding compatible extensions after my 15-year-old technical assistant leaves home.More happily, our entire household has avoided the cell phone. When we go for a hike or a road trip we are, unlike most Americans, still liberated from outside interference. A dilemma may develop if I want to keep calling home during my research trips, for pay phones are disappearing fast, and especially in places dominated by the affluent or the indulged. Last spring I was unable to find a single public phone in the village of Concord, Massachusetts, and in September I could locate only one on the campus of the University of Vermont. The cell phone, meanwhile, has cultivated legions of one-armed half-wits. Drivers young and old careen recklessly, their minds fixed on conversations that divert their attention and deprive them of one hand (and sometimes two, as the conversation intensifies). Public and private employees spend hours plying rakes, brooms, and shovels with one hand, chattering away while expecting full pay for two-handed work.Computerized ignition has eliminated a lot of minor automobile problems, but it created big new ones. The turn of a screwdriver once adjusted a racing engine idle, but now that calls for a $150 garage visit, and when a cars "brain" dies it might as well be a blown head gasket. Technology has all but extinguished friendly roadside encounters, for the average person can no longer help with most breakdowns, so everyone else keeps flying past. Most are too busy talking to notice, and if they did they would expect the victim to call AAA by cell phone: anyone who lacks one would, after all, probably be too unsavory to approach.Our relatively low-tech existence at least eases the burden of power failures. I even find them pleasant interludes, if Im not beset by children in the throes of electronics withdrawal. They offer a welcome opportunity to light up a lantern, throw another log on the fire, make some tea, and write a letter. If the electricity goes off some day and never comes back on, life will continue. I still have that manual typewriter. William Marvel lives in South Conway.