Richard Grayson on Oldster Magazine

[Richard Grayson]

Hi again Jane. Could I just ask you a question about your father, and I hope it's not too personal, in which case please don't respond. I am asking because as I told you I have a father the same age. Here's my question: Does your father need help with technology? Just today (and it's not even 1 pm) I have had to help my 95yo dad with about 4 technology things. Can your father easily use a TV, go from cable channels to streaming and move among streaming services? Can your father use a computer? My father can't, so if he wants a basketball score, I have to look it up online. Can your father use a smartphone? My father can't do some things on a flip phone, like this morning he got a text message from his girlfriend's housekeeper who lost her phone number and wanted to say she is not coming in today because she is ill. He doesn't know how to find the text message or respond to it. Another thing is an electronic payment -- he didn't get a credit card bill so I had to call up and have the payment sent before the deadline coming up soon, and so I had to make an electronic payment from his checking account. Usually he writes out checks and mails them out (spending on postage stamps) for every bill and he won't let us use electronic payments. I could go on. . . My father never learned to use a microcomputer even when required to get one for his job in his later years. (I offered to teach him -- at one time, back in the early 1980s I had a job teaching public school teachers to use computers in their classrooms! -- but he declined.)

I'm 70 and while I can't use every new technology, I find my father's lack of familiarity with technology probably the most difficult thing about dealing with him. I couldn't tell from your article if your father is tech-literate. I don't know too many people in their mid to late 90s who are. None of my aunts or uncles were, nor was my mom.