Notes from the Home - October 3, 2016

Fall fell on Columbus last week. When I opened the sliding door Wednesday morning, cool air rushed in. After a long, hot summer, the mercury finally found its way to the low sixties. That is barely chilly by northeast Ohio standards, but this is my fifth fall in Columbus. I didn't hurriedly shut the sliding door, but I did dig out a long-sleeve shirt and replace the shorts l was wearing with long pants. The afternoons have been hot, but not as hot as they were a week ago. According to the ten-day forecast, sunny skies and cooler temperatures are here to stay, at least for ten days. On Monday, October 10, the friendly meteorologist tells us we can expect a high of 83, a low of 54, and cloudless skies. Hope he is right.

Cooler temperatures are not far away. Mildred said her sister and brother-in-law paid her a visit this weekend. "They called when they got back home and said they had to turn the heat for a bit," Mildred said. "Where do they live?" "Just over the border in South Carolina."

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Reminders that I am no longer as young as I once was pop up in the strangest places, like "The Born Loser", the comic strip. The other day, a boy asked his father if he could use the computer to do his homework. The father said he could, and the boy asked, "Did you have your own computer when you were in school?" "Yes," the father said. "It was called a calculator."  

Unless I missed something, there were no calculators when I was in high school. There were adding machines. They were big clunky things; you punched in a number and pulled a handle. If there was a long series of numbers, you kept punching them in and pulling the handle until you got all the numbers in. 

They were called adding machines because that was what they did - they added. They were useless for higher math, like subtraction, multiplication and division. And now after that comic strip, the adding machine seems like something out of bronze age. Damn that Gen-Xer cartoonist, making me feel old.