"Where can we put the computer?"

"You need space for the screen, the printer, the speakers and the mainframe. Your old desk, cluttered with bills, pictures and papers of yesteryear, is too small," said my son, Gregg.

For my 65th birthday my wonderful children had given me a beautiful Gateway computer. After Federal Express delivered the many boxes I was afraid to approach them. I am a child of the 1950s. Those cartons were frightening.

I piled the boxes into a corner. It looked like a dairy farm, those Gateway containers sitting in my living room.

My son Gregg and his girlfriend Jennifer attacked these cowlike cartons on the weekend. Snapping parts together, plugging things into sockets, attaching different color wires to same-colored companions was a true work of genius. Those kids were fabulous. They worked with religious zeal and the gusto of missionaries.

I left the room and cowered in my den, hoping they wouldn't need me. They didn't. When they were finished a proclamation was handed to me. I was too weak to fight it.

"We will have to get rid of these books. We'll cart them down to the basement," proclaimed the two technicians.

"Get rid of the Encyclopedia Brittanica?" I asked meekly. "I love those books. I take great comfort in their alphabetical orderliness. I enjoy holding them and fondling them in my hands and looking up bizarre and strange facts. How can I part with them?" I cried.

"Everything you want to know is on the Internet," I was informed.

Strange phrases filled the air - e-mail, chat rooms, download, megabytes, backspace, floppy disk, hard drive, soft drive, mouse, click online, web site, computer chip, and "www".

I know I am going to miss the simplicity of these books, but I guess it's time to move forward.

Progress?

P.S.: My e-mail address is shgreenbug@aol.com.