Lenawee Smiles: Technological advances propel human adventures

It isn’t something I think about very often but when I do, I feel like Paul must have felt on the road to Damascus. I feel a sense of awe. No, I don’t drop to the ground and go blind, but I feel a certain sense of being in the presence of something far greater than myself.

I refer to today’s remarkable technology. Mind you I do not understand even one stray tiny part of it. On a good day I can read my email and answer it. I can walk the hallowed halls of Google without falling down and breaking a leg. However, I cannot copy and paste.

Sometimes I can successfully forward an article to a friend. Then I get a reply saying that since the friend is not a subscriber to that magazine, he cannot open it and would I send him a precis of the article? If I am feeling generous, I might do that. I am more apt to send him the link to the subscription department.

Anyway, one new thing I’ve conquered is Instagram. I am too inept to post anything on it. I use it only to see pictures of my adorable great-granddaughter. She really is incredibly cute. My granddaughter shares a lot of pictures and videos via Instagram. This is quite wonderful since they live about three-fourths of a continent away. I cannot just pop in every so often to cuddle that baby.

While I was admiring little Isabella’s determined efforts to pull herself into a standing position this morning, it struck me once more how much technology has provided us.

I started thinking about all our ancestors back in the late 18th century then the 19th century who decided to move from the eastern United States and push the frontier west in front of them.

The planning it took for them to embark on what had to be an uncertain future was enormous. Joining together in wagon trains. Trying to have enough supplies to take them to the first small place where they could purchase more food to continue their journey west.

Making this serious decision to leave behind their parents and the rest of the family they’d grown up with must have been difficult.

Young brides probably were not given a choice in the matter. They had to go with their husbands. Probably quite a few had to learn very quickly how to cook over an open fire and how to take care of a wound.

Some of these pioneers might not have gotten to the next state. Illness or injury may have forced their burial in a field or small wooded area.

But their courage kept them moving and moving. Wagon wheels broke. Babies were born. Some failed to thrive. Many of these people decided to stay in what would become known as the Great Plains. The rest would continue on trying to cross the Rocky Mountains before winter set in.

The hardest thing for them, I imagine, when they said goodbye and drove away from their comfortable homes, was the fact that they might not see those beloved faces ever again.

The odds were against them.

I thought about the hardships these determined people faced as they settled this land of ours.

I thought about the miracle of being able to watch Isabella on my computer screen grow from a tiny little creature into a giggling 9-month-old who knows deep inside that she must pull herself up so she can start walking.

I am, by and large, pretty grumpy about all the technology we have. I fear it will become so sophisticated that it will eventually take over human thought. Perhaps not today or tomorrow but sometime.

However, I have to admit that I use the parts of it that I need to or want to. I open Instagram pretty much before I am awake in the morning. I want to see that charming baby.

I want to see her parents as they go about their lives. Not too many years before this, it would not have been possible.

A hundred years ago, a number of families could telephone and mail black-and-white pictures to each other. Two hundred years ago, grimy letters might take some time to reach worried families. By that time, the writers might or might not have been able to settle on some land and build a home. They might have been able to plow their land and grow some vegetables, wheat and oats. Perhaps, they had a few chickens and a cow.

Others might have opened a small store in the one-street town that had sprung up on the prairie.

A few survived crossing sun-baked barren lands and the Rockies, finding the West Coast and the Pacific.

They could not have imagined that one day their descendants would sit holding a flat piece of metal with buttons on it and see pictures of people moving around on another piece of metal.

I can hardly imagine it.

Susan Keezer lives in Adrian. Send your good news to her at [email protected].

This article originally appeared on The Daily Telegram: Susan Keezer: Technological advances propel human adventures