Velda E Brotherton, click
here to update your pages on AuthorsDen.
Blogs by Velda E Brotherton
Into The 21st Century Kicking and Screaming 4/30/2007 12:01:08 PM
From Dial Up to DSL Thirty five years ago we moved to the country. I mean, the far out country. At our backs is the Ozark National Forest; out front is a valley cut by Sinkler Creek; to the left and right Ozark peaks that block the sun in the morning and evening, so we have less daylight than plains or desert dwellers.
This meant: No television reception; no cable; a telephone company that was less than perfect; Dial Up Internet connection.
But, you see, I thought accessing the Internet was a miracle in itself. My first computer had a five by five inch screen, no hard drive, and when closed, resembled a portable sewing machine. The printer typed slower than I did. But it was miracle number one, as I'd written my first three novels on a Sears portable electric typewriter. Actually, wrote that little baby right into the ground. Shelled it out all over the dining room floor.
Then I sold my first book, bought a desktop computer with 64 mb of memory and I'm not sure what the RAM was. Still no Internet. Along came JUNO and what they laughingly called Circle Calling on our country telephone service, which by the way began with a four-party line. With single party line and Circle Calling one could at last make all the interstate long distance calls for a base rate. Then the telephone company discovered we were all going on the Internet for hours each day. Oops. Put an end to that.
An enterprising soul came along with a company that would provide Dial Up to all the small towns here in the Ozarks and we were back in business. I was so happy, so ignorant of anything else, because this was better than anything we'd ever had. I listened to other writers talk about cable and DSL and even Satellite access and thought, what's the big deal? I'm on the Internet. Then I bought a satellite dish (yes bought) In those days they didn't give them away, and we had television rather than one station swimming underwater.
Continue writing, sell more books, up to six romance novels, but still Dial Up.
To shorten this long story, last week, we installed DSL and with the help of a grandson also installed a wireless router. So both computers are now online at lightning speed, and I can carry my laptop all over the house and use it without hooking up to anything.
Never mind that I nearly had a nervous breakdown every time I heard grandson's growl or grumble from my office, just knew this was not going to work. It couldn't. I won't tell you where he said we live, but its initials are BFE. Kids talk in letter codes anymore, and they don't much care what they say. I informed him I like living in BFE. He admitted he didn't blame me, but went on growling as he hooked up cables and telephones.
At last, here we are, still living where we want, but updated into the 21st Century and loving it.
