All my mother’s brothers have been geeky from boyhood, keeping up with the latest technology and buying it whenever possible. Papa studied computer programming in college (albeit using those monster computers the size of buildings running programs with punched paper). Uncle Benjamin and Papa started using Macs over 15 years ago. Uncle Benjamin, Uncle Leo, my cousins Christopher and Timothy, Ben, Berek, and I all use Nikon CoolPix cameras. When the cousins are together, we often end up talking about computer parts, specs, bugs, etc. We trade computer parts quite often. The younger kids have computers thrown together using parts rejected by older siblings or cousins (e.g., Berek’s comp). And in the midst of all that, Mama has always taken pictures with the same camera (also Nikon) she’s used for the last 20 years, and laughed when we moan and groan about freezing, crashes and lost data, triumphantly waving her pencil and paper. She only recently learned how to play CDs.

Mama had a small high school reunion a few weeks ago and some of her friends e-mailed her last week. So, last Thursday, she sat down in front of a computer and typed out an e-mail. (She used to use typewriters so she already knew how to type.) It took her a long time, but she wasn’t too bad at it. She’s learned enough to use the arrow keys, the “Home” and “End” keys, and the difference between backspace and delete. I even showed her cutting and pasting, though she needs more practice with that. Now that Ben is going to be gone, she’s really serious about learning how to e-mail and IM. If I can get her to IM, she’ll be ahead of Papa! He’s still reluctant to try.

For the first time in my life, I thought my mother was really cute as she glared at the computer and keyboard trying as hard as she could to figure things out.