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Even so, retirement must wait
(by Barbara Christian - October 27, 2010)
WINDOW ON MAIN STREET, BY BARBARA CHRISTIAN
Even so, retirement must wait
Pardon the Rodney Dangerfield imitation, but I get no respect. Or maybe it's my age and "wisdom" that get short shrift.
Just recently, two letter writers to this newspaper suggested that I retire or cut back on my contributions to the world of journalism. They said I just didn't get it. The "it" being an ability to embrace their stagnated, never-gonna-work-never-did-work conservative world view.
Well, I hate to say it, but my detractors may be onto something. Not politics, understand, but "the modern world" is often a befuddlement to me.
I don't understand the charms of Facebook, texting or the need for a third "Jackass" movie in 3-D or why it needs to be shown on more than one screen at the local multi-plex. But these are just for starters.
Tried to book a flight to Kansas recently, and one of my choices was to fly from Cleveland to Atlanta, change planes then fly on to the Sunflower State. Did I mention the gates are always far apart, making the whole experience an exercise in heart-pounding panic?
Traveling east to go west makes no sense. Another option had me flying to Minneapolis and flying northwest to get to the southwest. Huh?
Let's see, multiple stops at various airports, a plane change with luggage desperately trying to keep up. What could possibly go wrong?
No doubt someone will explain the complexities associated with airline hubs and why you just can't buy a ticket from one airport to another without first flying to points C and/or D.
And what's with these air fares? They are all over the place.
I get that you pay more for wider seats and front-of-the-cabin service but don't understand why fares can be anywhere from $250 to $1,000 for the same seat back in coach, depending on when that flight is booked. That's just not right.
In one Cleveland-to-Kansas scenario, the longer the flight and the more stops and changes it made, the more expensive it got. Shouldn't we get a cost break for the inconvenience? Airplanes are not cruise ships, after all.
As passengers, most of us just want to get to where we are going as quickly, safely and economically as possible. If our luggage arrives at the same time we do, it's a bonus.
Televisions are another puzzlement. Everyone wants bigger, flatter and thinner, right? Stadium sized, if you can get it through the door.
So why are they getting smaller, and why is this touted as a good thing? Now that they have gotten as gigantic as possible, the wizards of technology have turned their genius toward making them tiny then throwing in a phone, camera and the Internet.
These people may be super smart, but they have missed a detail. Didn't anyone tell them that, as a population, we are getting older and more nearsighted, farsighted and arthritic?
And the older we get the more difficulty we have seeing those postage-stamp screens on the Saltine=sized gadgets then are asked to have the dexterity of a surgeon to peck out a wall post to our Facebook friends on keys the size of couscous.
Who needs it? I don't. But I'm not retiring either.
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