© 2017 Michael
Swickard, Ph.D. Early in
life I learned how technology can let us down. It was my seventh birthday and I
had lobbied desperately for a drum without much hope considering the look on my
mother’s face.
So, my
Uncle Gene bought me a guitar for my birthday. When I opened the package my
mother and I said simultaneously, “Oh my God!”
It wasn’t
a real guitar, rather, it had a crank which when turned played the tune “Oh
Susanna.” This was before anyone with that name became the Governor of New
Mexico.
I turned
the crank and the song was a hit. Uncle Gene had a big smile, even when my
mother, while bringing him hot coffee, accidentally spilled it on him.
I played
the song again, and again. Then I decided to sing and even added some yodeling
and a few yips. I was Johnny One Song all day long. My parents looked a little
frayed.
Then it
was time to say my prayers, brush my teeth and go to bed. I played the song one
last time for my mother as she tucked me in. What a present!
Next morning,
I jumped up, grabbed the guitar and turned the crank. No sound came out. The
technological wonder broke while I was asleep. I was crestfallen. My uncle
looked glum.
I asked
him, “Can you fix this?” He looked at my mother and then slowly shook his head.
We all called him Uncle Genius, and I immediately knew that if he couldn’t fix
it, heck, it was broken for good since he was an electrical engineer.
I’ll admit
I suspected that one of the grown-ups had some hand in the guitar not working,
so I asked my mother if she or my dad had been playing “Old Susanna” on my
guitar after I went to sleep. Her expression wavered between hysteria and
alarm.
She firmly
stated that no one had been playing “Oh Susanna.” That meant I was forced to
accept that the guitar broke on its own. Over the years other technological
wonders have broken and they have broken at the most inconvenient times. In
fact, I have come to expect it.
We don’t
know when our technology will break except it will be unexpectedly. That rule has
been true. Lightning hit a few houses away and everything connected to the
cable died. The power in the house wasn’t affected, just everything tied to the
cable.
I brought
the almost still smoking cable box into the local cable office. The
representative immediately proclaimed that when lightning hits and blows up
technology, “It is an act of God.”
I smiled,
“Can I quote you?” He hesitated a moment and then nodded. So, I wrote a column
a few years ago that a major international company affirms that there is a God.
He seemed cranky the next time I saw him.
It is
likely that it wasn’t God who broke my guitar. But I now understand and have long
since forgiven her.
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