Twenty years ago last week, IBM gave birth to the home computer.
It’s been downhill ever since.
Oh, sure, our speed is up. Our efficiency is up. We can talk to people in Thailand with just a few keystrokes. And any patient who has ever needed medical information will swear by computers and the Internet.
But in so many ways, computers in our homes have changed us forever. The human price we have paid over 20 years?
Let me count the ways.
He waved to his wife and baby son, and headed for the airport.
Fourteen years later, he still hasn’t come home.
The son is a teenager now, about to start a new school. The wife does the chores that her husband used to do. She takes care of the lawn. She fills the gas tank. She is hardened by her tears but strengthened by her faith.
Ilove the Ten Commandments. I can recite them. I don’t always succeed in obeying them, but I still try, and I think the world would be better if we all did.
Having said that, I can still say this: The Ten Commandments do not belong in a state courthouse. But last week, in Montgomery, Ala., they arrived in a big way.
In the still of the night, a 2 1/2-ton monument featuring the Ten Commandments was trucked in and positioned in the rotunda of the state’s judicial building. The building is home to, among other things, the Alabama State Supreme Court.
He had taken so many hockey shots before. None hurt like this one. It was the Olympics, it was overtime, a shoot-out, two teams, five men each, one goalie to beat.
He had the last shot, his country’s last hope in the sport it worshiped. Brendan Shanahan skated in on the goalie, a guy named Dominik Hasek, and faked, but it didn’t take. Hasek went with him, stopped the shot, the crowd roared, the Czechs had their upset, and that was the end of Canada’s 1998 gold medal dream.
Whenever I am asked to describe Detroiters, I always tell the same story.
It was 16 years ago, and I had just arrived in the Motor City. I had not yet written a column for this newspaper. The only knowledge anyone here had of me was a small item in the Free Press announcing my hiring.
I came to the office.
I already had mail.
A half-dozen letters. Handwritten to me. They could pretty much be summed up this way:
Dear Mr. Albom:
You want to know why no one trusts politicians? Take a look at campaign finance reform, which is now, after a year’s worth of hype, lying in shreds on the floor of Congress while lawmakers point fingers at one another and yell:
“Your fault! Your fault!”
Honestly, I’ve seen more admirable behavior in “The Sopranos.” At least they admit they’re crooks.
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