Friday, August 31, 2012

What Harry Macafee Taught Me About Aging


One of the hazards of working in a theatre company for young people is occasionally, as the only man on the staff, I’m called upon to fill a role onstage.  This spring I played the role of Mr. Macafee in Bye Bye Birdie.
 
Mr. Macafee, like me, is the father of a high school girl.  He also has a younger son, played in our cast by a young man who is the same age as my other daughter.  Mr. Macafee is a little set in his ways, a bit awkward, and somewhat out of touch with pop culture.   In other words, it’s a role I was born to play.

I was talking to a friend about my role and he mentioned he had also played Mr. Macafee when he was in high school.  Jason is much younger than I, so I don’t think he identified with the character in the same way I do.  He described how he put gray in his hair, wore old man glasses, and padded his belly.  To him, Harry Macafee was an old geezer. 

Now to be honest, I often joke about being old, but I’ve never really meant it, despite the fact that I have started to notice things I’ve never noticed before.  Why, for example, did I ever think sitting cross-legged on the floor was comfortable?  In elementary school I could sit that way for hours, but now, after two, maybe three minutes, my knees and back are groaning in protest.  When I go to concerts now, I no longer move and sing along with the music, but instead think seriously about permanent hearing loss.  Last Christmas my mother-in-law bought me a nose-hair trimmer, and I was actually pleased, knowing I would use it at least twice a month.  I’m sure these are signs of aging, but even at forty-six, I still don’t really feel old.

But listening to Jason talk about Harry Macafee like he was some fossil got me to wondering...How old is this character supposed to be?  

The script doesn't say, but it does provide a couple clues.  The musical is set is 1957.  And Mr. Macafee, responding to an unintentional jab at his age from daughter Kim responds “I’m not an old man.  I was eighteen in World War 2.”

Let’s assume he was eighteen at the start of the war.  After all, if he was eighteen on D-Day, he could boast that he was fifteen on the Day of Infamy.  And let’s say he’s counting from even earlier.  Even if he turned nineteen the day after Hitler marched into Poland on September 1st, 1939, he could legitimately claim he was eighteen in World War 2, even if just for a day. 

So that means, the very oldest Harry Macafee--this fossil, this old codger--could be is…let’s see…1957 minus 1939, add 18, and we get…

Thirty-six.

Thirty-six!

THIRTY-SIX!?

I was okay thinking that I was on the edge of being old.  What’s tough is realizing that I am ten years past Codger-hood.  I've been swallowed up by Fossil-hood and am now well into my Geezer-hood.  

Can Old Fart-hood be far behind?

Friday, August 3, 2012

"I'm a Mac." "And I'm a TRS-80."


About five years ago, my dad bought a new computer.   For a long time, my brothers, sister and I had been trying to convince him to get a new one, but his response would always be, “I’ve got a computer!  I’ve got lots of computers!”

Technically speaking, this was true.  He had four of them. 

OK, those of you who remember when IBM came out with the Pentium, raise your hand.  Good!  Now, who remembers what preceded that?

Not as many of you, but yes, the 486.  And before that?...Anyone?

Oh, dear, most of the people who would have remembered the 386 are already dead.

In 2007, my dad was the last person in North America who still owned and operated a 286.  If you look up “286 computer” on eBay, you can see what my dad’s looked like.  You can pick one up now for less than $200.  They are usually described with words like “Historical,” “Vintage,” and “VERY RARE.”

And that was his newest computer.

He also had (and still has) a TRS-80, which is a Radio-Shack model from the 1970’s with a white on black screen.  It loads programs from a cassette tape.  I bet most modern high school students have never touched a cassette tape, let alone a TRS-80.

The other two used floppy disks.  Remember floppy disks?  Maybe.  Remember 8-inch floppy disks?  Probably not.

So when my dad’s “new” computer, the 286, finally died, he approached replacing it the same way he would approach buying a washing machine or a refrigerator.  He consulted his Consumer Reports magazines, and Consumer Reports told him that the best machine he could buy was a Mac.

Now, I know that Macs are fine computers.  I am certain of this because my friends who own Macs are always telling me in smug and patronizing tones how much better their laptops are than my li’l ol’ Toshiba PC with Windows 7.  My computer sometimes gets slow and occasionally crashes.  Their Macs also sometimes get slow and occasionally crash, but they also have slick white cases.  I’m not sure, but I think it’s the white case that made their Macs cost $1000 more than my PC.

Anyway, my dad’s Mac arrived.  As advertised, in a matter of minutes we had it out of the box and humming away.  We were amazed at all the things it could do.  We took pictures of ourselves.  We took distorted pictures of ourselves.  We took more distorted pictures of ourselves.  It was a busy day. 

We left my dad’s house with a sense of optimism and hope for the future.  We could be more connected!  We could email!  We could even Skype!  And maybe, just maybe...he might get a Facebook account!

A couple of days later, after no email of Facebook contact, I gave my dad a call on his landline, which is what we used to refer to back in the old days as “the telephone.”  I found out my dad had given his new computer a nickname.

“I can’t get That Damn Thing to burn a DVD!” he groused.

I went right over.  How hard could it be?  Didn’t Bill Gates steal the idea for Windows from Steve Jobs?  Or maybe it was the other way around.  Either way, I knew about PCs, so a Mac shouldn’t be that different.

I was wrong.

Now, I don’t want any nasty comments from Mac-lovers.  I’m not talking about your Mac.  All I am saying is that my dad’s Mac is an idiot. For example, it seems to save documents and cheerfully tuck them somewhere in a secret place in its memory, leaving us to play a hilarious and invigorating game of “Find the File.”  That’s just one of its many easy and intuitive features!

When I got to my dad’s house, there was a pile of worthless DVD’s next to it. My dad was fuming.
“What are you trying to do?” I asked.

“I want to know why That Damn Thing won’t make a slide show from the pictures of our cruise that I can show on my DVD player.”

“OK, that should be easy.  I’ve done this on my computer before.  Here, let’s put a blank DVD in.”  The golden disk slid smoothly into the side.  SO much cooler than my PC.

Suddenly, at the bottom of the screen, an icon started bouncing up and down.  It reminded me of when I was in third grade.  There was this annoying kid who always thought he knew the answers and would wave his hand frantically until the teacher called on him, but whenever she did, he would sit there and go “Ummmmm…”

I clicked on the icon and was immediately rewarded with a colorful, spinning wheel.  After the wheel had spun for two minutes my palms started to sweat and I began to feel an inexplicable rage percolating inside me.  If you listened carefully, you could almost hear the Mac going “Ummmmm…”  Finally the program popped up.  The wheel spun for another minute, and then, blessedly, turned into an arrow.  I breathed a sigh.  I was back in familiar territory.  “OK, let’s right click this…”

Nothing happened.

“OK, so Mac doesn’t right click.  Let’s see.  Where are the pictures you want to burn, Dad?”

“I don’t know.”

“See, this is easy.  You just click here, where it says ‘burn CD’.”

“Try it,” he said.

The wheel spun for five minutes this time.  “Ummmmmmmm….”

As I said, that was five years ago.  To my knowledge, Dad has NEVER been able to make a DVD of his cruise pictures, or any pictures for that matter.  He used to call me for advice, but eventually the only thing I could recommend was to buy a PC so that his sons could actually help him when he got stuck. 

He still has his Mac though.  It sits at its desk, its gleaming white screen thin and erect and proud.  My dad eventually learned to send emails and to write letters, but he still regards it warily.  He no longer calls it “That Damn Thing.”  Instead he calls it “This Damn Thing,” which means he’s warming to it. 

But I know that deep down inside, he wants his 286 back.