Computing With Bifocals by Nancy Carroll Gravley A column for people who remember what the world was like before there was color..... Two Great Mac Success Stories March 22nd, 2000 Success Stories Come In Many Shapes And Sizes At the end of last week's column I said that I was going to talk about some more success stories this week. I have two to share. Both are about men who, because of their age or life experiences, approached the whole computer concept with great trepidation. In each case the availability of a Macintosh made all the difference between success and failure. The first one is my father so please indulge me a bit while I give a brief history. My father was born in the middle of February in the year 1918 in a small town in Alabama. Actually, I think all towns in America with the exception of New York were still small in 1918, but I digress. My grandmother was only 6 and 1/2 months pregnant when he was born and he only weighed one pound and one ounce as verified by the scales the doctor carried with him for such things as delivering babies. Family legend has it that you could cover up his body with a dollar bill and his head with a silver dollar. It is a documented fact that he slept in a lined cigar box that his father had prepared to use as his coffin. No one paid much attention to him the first few hours because no one expected him to live. The concern was all for my grandmother who was quite ill. However, someone took care of him and then my father's grandmother came by train sometime within the next couple of days to take over. She kept him warm by surrounding his "bed" with hot bricks and fed him with an eyedropper. Now we know that one's vision suffers when one is born premature, but back then it was a different story so he was in the fifth grade before someone figured out that he had really bad vision. Something like 20/675 in each eye, so he got glasses. When I heard all this for the first time my first question was "how in the world did he get to the fifth grade?" "How did he learn to read?" The answer is that, duh, he became a very strong auditory learner. When everyone sat around in the little reading circles reading the same chapters of Dick and Jane over and over, he just memorized them so that he wouldn't look stupid to his classmates. He did the same thing when his mother taught him to play the piano. He just learned to play by ear and he is a wonderful musician. When he was 65, and a member of the Shrine band, he enrolled in the local junior college and learned to read music for the first time so that he would be able to follow the music exactly when the band played in music contests. As an adult he served in the Navy during WWII by memorizing the eye chart so that he could pass the physical. For the rest of his working life he was mostly in the typewriter business. All of this is preparation for explaining why there is a success story for my father that is related to the Mac. This past Christmas I passed on my old Performa 560 to my parents with the hope that we could at last get either or both of them using the computer, at least for e-mail. My father's vision is now rated at 20/875 and he has continued to find the most success in situations where he can learn auditorily, but he really wanted to learn to use a computer like his children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren. He has spent a lot of time since Christmas learning to use the Mac. The secret is using large font sizes and color coded folders. Below is part of an e-mail that I got from him today: Dear Nancy: I know you will be surprised to get the second letter in one day. Well I have to show off. I wrote that I got your instructions in your last letter. (I am not sure if I told you I didn't understand what to do about it..(I WILL HAVE TO DEPEND ON MY DAUGHTER) I did clear out all the stuff that we both had in our box.. I even cleared some of the letters (OLD) that you, Wayne and Pat sent. I didn't really want to but you know I can't hit just one button on this thing. It is fun to use the machine, now that I understand enough to receive and send. Love Dad He has only really been using the computer for about a month because there was a period of 3 weeks in there that it wasn't available to him. In addition to sending and receiving e-mail, he can get on the internet and do searches, he can pull up my web page and show it to friends, and he can work with music or program CDs. He knows how to use bookmarks to open files on the internet and he knows the basics for doing searches. He also can open and play a mean game of solitaire and work the slot machines in a gambling game. He is still trying to learn to download and install stuff. Downloading and installing were tasks that I didn't begin to learn until I had been on a Mac for more than a year. Just in case your math is as poor as mine, he turned 82 last month. [Editor's Note: Sounds like your Dad is pretty darned hip!] The second success story is about an acquaintance of mine whom I will refer to as "Jim." Jim is in his early 50's. He has successfully beat alcoholism and has been sober for the past 15 years. He has a number of serious medical problems and Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD), and a couple of years ago he had to retire from a teaching position. For a short time he worked in a retail position, but even that is no longer possible and he is having to fight the social security system to get the disability benefits for which he is truly entitled. Jim has a wife and two teenagers. While Jim's ability to support his family is greatly diminished, his wife's has significantly increased. Add to this the fact that both his children and his wife are extremely computer literate. To get to the point, we are talking major depression here on top of everything else. A couple of months ago Jim's wife was able to purchase a couple of iMacs through the graduate school program she attends. Prior to this the family shared a second hand 486 PC. Jim's experiences trying to use it were a disaster. He caused it to completely crash on two occasions within the same month. Each time required professional repair work. His ADD made it impossible for him to remember the numerous steps necessary to accomplish even the simplest tasks on the PC. At that point Jim stopped trying to use the computer, rather he spent all day alone at home with it sitting there to remind him of yet another way in which he had "failed." It shouldn't come as a surprise to Mac users to hear at this point that the iMac has made all the difference in the world. Once Jim realized that even if he made mistakes, the iMac could always be easily put to rights, he started to use it. And, of course, the more he uses it the better he has become. Almost every day when his wife comes home from work he has new questions for her that indicate his learning curve and he has started to venture out on the internet for information about his disability and help with his social security appeal. He feels comfortable joining family discussions about using the computer and has offered to help his youngest child with a homework project. It hasn't solved any of the money issues or his feelings that he should be able to support his family, but it has certainly given him a feeling of self confidence and a method to take back some of the control he was missing from his life. People at work call me a Mac fanatic. I guess I am, and I will stay that way as long as I can continue to see Macs make a difference in peoples lives - not just teckies, but everyone. If you have any tips, suggestions, or other comments about this, or any other Mac topics, send them to me so that I can share them with other readers. Copies of Nancy's book Tips, Hints, and Solutions for Seasoned Beginners Using Apple Macintosh Computers With OS X are available in PDF download versions  for US$9.57 and in print version for $18.15 plus $4.00 shipping.   To view sample pages and get ordering information visit the September 14, 2004 column. Post your comments below. Check out Nancy's complete index of all her columns for the most complete list of tips anywhere. The list is categorized and is a great reference when you are looking for help! A Capacious Catalog Of Computer Tips Talking to a generation that remembers what the world was like before there was color, covers issues for people who don't care how their computer works, but rather what their computer and the internet can do for them. Nancy has a Master's degree in Human Services Administration and prior to her retirement she worked for almost 30 years in field of mental health and mental retardation. She has been a Mac user for 11 years, and has recently developed an avocation of teaching basic computer skills in both group and one-to-one settings. Most Recent Computing With Bifocals Columns Of iPod Cases and System Preferences - August 30th Cool Tips, Kudos for Bob, & a Review - July 31st Two Apps for Reading and Browsing - June 23rd Other "Computing With Bifocals" Columns