Here I am at 71 trying to fight my way with using computers, cell phones and publishing and all the many changes since I grew up.
Why, So Many Changes
January 30, 2026
By Rose Marie Rideout
What happened to the simpler days, When pencil & paper was the way.
When we would study every night
To make sure our answers were right.
When I walked to visit my friends,
With them the whole day we'd spend.
We never guessed what to do for fun,
So many games known by everyone.
No phone to call them to play,
Why, so many changes every day.
What can we do, I guess we just try
I can't understand, I don't know why.
So many questions we ask today
Why things have changed this way.
The cell phone well let me see,
How do I make it my way to be.
I try to answer, but oh ther're gone, Again I've done something wrong.
Washing dishes once was a chore,
Dishwashers makes it no more.
Confusion is what I have to say,
As I try to understand the new way.
I never grew up with these things,
and the annoyance they bring. Why, so many changes are made,
To me are strange, I need some aid.
The world is moving too fast. Ai might Imamate and write shiny poems but it'll never capture the soul or heart of a life lived through sunshine and pain.
I prefer to read real raw poems, if it feels fake I skip over it. As Ron says, it's kinda okay for art, yet the art from it that I use still lacks that soul. You notice it on tv in the media, it has a dark feel. That said, I still want art to look like Bambi or Pooh not made artificially and soul less.
A very telling poem about how aging affects our ability to accept change. Younger folks don't have those memories and think that the way things are done now were always done that way unless they study history. As time move on with its change, the volume of history increases. Making it hard for young people to learn, or even understand the underpinnings of everything…even poetry.
My pencil and paper days with typing at 16, were in high school. Looking back on some of my manuscripts recently, I did a lot of personal markups that are highly visible in my drafts.
Getting together with friends had no plan agenda unless it was swimming, camping, hunting, or fishing. Everyone played impromptu sports, board and card games.
I remember when I bought the first portable dish washing machine for my mother and got a free turkey. She wheeled it out from a closet every evening after dinner and hooked it up to the sink faucets. Told me later that it greatly reduced the number of colds the family had, by sterilizing the dishes where using virus filled dish cloths for drying the dishes had spread the diseases.
I've tended to embrace new technology, and probably would have used cell phones from the beginning, but my paralyzed hands prevented me from doing that. For you, making these changes is difficult. I have found that many of the innovations in life maybe making it harder for us to be free from distractions and stress.
Be selective of what you want to take on. We all have a choice. I am gradually accepting the benefits of AI, like providing an image for my poems. But right now, I would never let it write a poem for me, or even make my poem more great again…does that have an ironic ring to you?
WHISPERS OF THE HEART is artist and author J. Allen Wilson's second book of poetry.It can be autographed and shipped within 48 hours of order. NO LONGER AVAILABLE.
This collection of poetry addresses the nature of time, reflections on the natural world, the difficulty of loss,
contemporary social issues and gratitude for life.
Contraband Marriage, traveling along the hemline of loving after incarceration, is a love story written in lyric and free form, set in reality with a different ever after.
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I prefer to read real raw poems, if it feels fake I skip over it. As Ron says, it's kinda okay for art, yet the art from it that I use still lacks that soul. You notice it on tv in the media, it has a dark feel. That said, I still want art to look like Bambi or Pooh not made artificially and soul less.
My pencil and paper days with typing at 16, were in high school. Looking back on some of my manuscripts recently, I did a lot of personal markups that are highly visible in my drafts.
Getting together with friends had no plan agenda unless it was swimming, camping, hunting, or fishing. Everyone played impromptu sports, board and card games.
I remember when I bought the first portable dish washing machine for my mother and got a free turkey. She wheeled it out from a closet every evening after dinner and hooked it up to the sink faucets. Told me later that it greatly reduced the number of colds the family had, by sterilizing the dishes where using virus filled dish cloths for drying the dishes had spread the diseases.
I've tended to embrace new technology, and probably would have used cell phones from the beginning, but my paralyzed hands prevented me from doing that. For you, making these changes is difficult. I have found that many of the innovations in life maybe making it harder for us to be free from distractions and stress.
Be selective of what you want to take on. We all have a choice. I am gradually accepting the benefits of AI, like providing an image for my poems. But right now, I would never let it write a poem for me, or even make my poem more great again…does that have an ironic ring to you?
Ron