I Am a Dinosaur

I was turned down for a job recently because I didn’t have enough technical skills.

The job was a marketing and public relations director for a local business and it sounded interesting. I applied with the hopes of getting it, being able to be paid to write things and to earn a better weekly check than I am getting now.

But, alas, when the employers found out I didn’t know how to do Power Point and I wasn’t all that fond of Facebook and other social media, I didn’t make the final cut. I should have seen it coming because the employer found out I was a reporter, she asked me more about my thoughts on the West Memphis 3 murder mystery than what I could do for the business.

At first I was depressed about it. The increase in pay would have been nice. We have saved three stray cats in the neighborhood and the vet and food bills are always high. A change of job scenery would have been nice, too.

I am a dinosaur. I’m old and trapped in the ways of yore. A friend of mine is an editor at an Arkansas paper and he talks about his pagination process of putting the paper to bed each day. When I was starting in newspaper so many years ago, I typed on a real typewriter, like those reporters you see wearing fedoras and clacking out stories in smoke-filled newsrooms. Pagination? I used to print copy out on typing paper, cut it, run the strips through a waxer and stick it on dummy sheets that replicated the final page.

Later, when I became a bureau reporter for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette all I had to learn how to push a couple of keys on the laptop to send my stories to the Little Rock office. Still, I had issues and our computer tech people told me I was considered job security for them since I was pretty illiterate in the world of computing.

So, I was saddened. Looking back, I don’t know why I applied. Obviously, technology is part of a public relations job. You have to get the word out about the business as quickly as you can, but I don’t know the difference between a jpeg and a farm pig and I have to get my wife to help me post pictures on Facebook on the infrequent times I do.

I could probably get a job as the town crier, hawking out news from street while wearing a three-cornered hat and knickers, but there aren’t many jobs like that around anymore.

Yes, I am extinct. Technology has passed me by. I’m sitting on the information highway, trying to bum a ride with the young speedsters.

I turned to my APBA 1972 baseball season replay game to drown out my sorrows. One of my favorite players as a kid, Willie Stargell, was leading the majors in home runs in my replay. The Minnesota Twins, the team I learned baseball when I lived in Minnesota in 1972, was doing pretty well and most of the teams had developed playing personalities. I could easily get lost in a few games and forget my worthlessness.

And I realized then, that APBA does cater to dinosaurs like me. There’s the computerized version, but I prefer rolling dice and using the game cards the company prints.

I never got into the video game things; I was awful at them. Before my first wife passed away, my stepson played Mortal Kombat with me and took glee in beating the stuffing out of me every time because I couldn’t tell which buttons to push. I also showed my ineptness when a friend tried to get me to play some Nintendo space game. I’d usually get fried by a laser before the first round of aliens settled in for the battle.

Nope, it’s the basics for me. Give me a red and white dice, two teams of carded players and away I go.

I sought comfort in a game that’s created for people like me who were depressed because I’m not technologically savvy.

The depression passed. I mean, there’s nothing I can do about it anyway. But the game has helped. It’s one thing that I can enjoy and excel at without worrying about computer stuff and Power Points and all that.

So, for all you dice and cards APBA players, who, like me, aren’t zipping down the info highway, embrace your dinosaur.

Just don’t expect a hug back if your dinosaur’s a Tyrannosaurus Rex. Their tiny arms wouldn’t be able to reach around you, you know.