GOOGLE OR GRANDPA?

               Whenever I need answers, information, or input, I have two reliable sources on which I can depend: Google, that little bar on the top left of my computer screen, or grandpa, the easy going, common sense expert who has lived and learned for over 70 years.  

            I have to admit that when I need information, I often choose Google, especially when I need information for a school paper or other project. It’s faster, and often more easily accessible.

            Yet some internet sources are not always correct. Websites give us the cold hard facts. In essence, there is something missing from the treasure trove of information we know as the internet, something real and personal; an element that can only come from someone who has been there.

One experience that opened my eyes to this was a phone conversation I had with my grandpa a few years ago. I was driving home for Christmas break, relying on my GPS to lead me there because I am rather poor with directions. As we were talking, I told my grandpa where I was based on the signs that were coming up. With just those few details, road signs and various things I drove past, he was able to tell me exactly where I was, what signs I should see next, and how much time it would take to get there. It was like he was seeing it all in his head from hundreds of miles away.

I was amazed. I had known my grandpa was good with directions, but I didn’t realize how good. This discovery changed my perspective and helped me value him even more. “Who needs a Tom-Tom when you have Grandpa?” I asked myself.

M grandpa is not a walking, talking road atlas. Nor did he sit and memorize all these mile markers and road signs. He learned his way around by driving a semi for over half of his life. He knows all the roads, towns, and signposts in the area because he navigated them every week, five days a week for over forty years.

            Personal experience: that, in my conclusion, is the missing element. Web sites can give us information, but they can’t tell us how they gained this information or what they learned along the way.

            All of us younger folks, including me, catch ourselves occasionally thinking that older people are out of touch with the times. We think that we know better than they do in some areas because we are more technologically advanced, more street smart, and more stylish.

Yet, if we stop to think about it, our grandpas and grandmas are, in a sense, pieces of living history. They lived back in the days when folks had to wash clothes by hand and plant and

harvest crops the old fashioned way. They were there during World War II, the Kennedy assassination, and so much more. I think we would all be amazed by how much we could learn by taking a notebook and a pencil and asking Grandpa what the world was like when he was growing up.

            Yes, search engines are helpful. Web sites give us a wealth of information. But, as my experiences with both Cyberspace and senior citizens has taught me, while Google is probably not disappearing from our lives anytime soon, Grandpa’s time is running out.