So, I am just not sure that the following blog is complete or really strikes the chord I was looking for.  I’d welcome any thoughts or suggestions on how to improve upon it…

I Doughnut No How This Will End

This morning you would have found me doing what I do virtually every morning.  I was sitting in the kitchen, drinking my coffee, and reading the news feed off of my iPhone.  My method is pretty straightforward; I read the headlines and then select those articles that appear to be something I would be interested in.  Today, while doing my morning routine I came upon the following headline: “We Doughnut Know Why Hailey and Justin Bieber Never Dress for the Same Occasion”.  What?  I’m sure that we have all come across such errors in things weave red.  At first, I laughed but then I thought about it and realized that I had the perfect topic for a blog.  Basic skills are suffering a long, slow death!  I’m guessing that this has been going on since the creation of the wheel.  Every knew advancement in technology has maid mankind’s life easier… and lead to the loss of some fundamental skill that our forefathers had.  However, the death of basic skills is moving ever more rapidly, keeping pace with the spiraling advancements in science and technology.  We are becoming more and more dependent upon technology to take care of things so that we don’t have to.  Four example, a few years ago we had a major ice storm that knocked out power for over a week.  Later, after everything was restored, I was talking to a neighbor who bemoaned the fact that they had lost everything in there refrigerator and freezer.  To this I asked, “Why didn’t you just put it outside in your garage?  The temperatures were below freezing for the whole time.”

This long demise in basic skills is now starting to permeate all facets of our lives and affect our interactions with one another.  Let me give a few examples:

• Considering the headline that inspired this blog, I have to start with spelling, grammar and proofreading. We have become dependent on a computer to due this four us.  The problem is that “spell-check” doesn’t always identify errors witch still spell a word.  It might not identify incorrect context, tense or meaning.  For example, “to, too and two” are all words, but each has a different meaning (not to mention that one is a preposition, one an adverb and one a number… thank you Mrs. Gist).  Don’t even get me started on things like “Let’s eat Grandma” versus “Let’s eat, Grandma” (I’ll save punctuation and abbreviations for another day).  Back in the 1970’s I actually worked for a small local newspaper, “The Illinoian Star”.  One thing that almost every employee had to do from time to time was proofread articles and ads to make sure that their weren’t any errors.  Sadly, it appears that the age of human proofreaders has been made obsolete by technology and, as such, we doughnut know what the Biebers are wearing…

• What has happened to basic math skills?! Where are the flash cards and times tables, and doing your math work without a calculator?  Heck, I can even remember a time when showing all your work could earn you partial credit, even if you had the wrong answer.  Being the old curmudgeon that I am, I have started making this a game.  It gives me great pleasure to go to a drive through and be told that I owe something like $10.59.  I’ll go up to the payment window and give them a $20 and a $1.  More often than not, this will blow their mind!  They cannot grasp why I would give them the one-dollar bill when the $20 covers it?  I’ll tell them to enter it into the cash register.  Once they have given me my ten-dollar bill and forty-one cents in change, I explain that this way I have gotten back one bill (a $10) instead of five (a $5 and four $1’s).  I start to explain how this takes up less space in my wallet… but by then the clerk looks like a dear in the headlights and the person behind me is honking.  My point is that we are losing basic math skills and becoming dependent on a calculator or a computer, or a cash register to do it for us.  Well, what happens when the power goes out???  This may sound strange, but I think that all children should be required to keep score for bowling tournaments without the assistance of any technology.  When I was a kid, I kept score for bowling tournaments.  I got paid twenty-five cents a game plus free food and drink.  What a deal!  Now, I don’t know if you’ve ever participated in a bowling tournament, but it usually pits one team of four or five against another team of the same number.  They bowl on to adjacent lanes with one member of each team bowling at the same time.  Believe me, it moves fast.  As the scorekeeper you had to keep track of how many pins each bowler knocked down and add it to their previous score (with additional rules for strikes and spares).  All of this needed to be completed before the next ball rolled down the alley.  Bottom line, you learned to add and subtract really fast, and you learned little rules that made things easier.  For example, instead of adding nine to any number try adding 10 and subtracting 1… trust me.

• Why can’t we just talk to one another anymore? OK, I will go on record stating that I hate texting (I’d also like to eliminate the “reply all” option from email.  Again, for another day…).  Anyway, that being said, I find more and more people who can’t seem to keep up a conversation with another human being but can text back and forth four hours.  I know that I have actually frustrated some folk when they send me a text and I call them back to find out what they want.  This lack of verbal communication skills, and reliance on abbreviated, written text also leads to other problems, like taking things out of context, misinterpreting the meaning and intent (“Let’s eat Grandma!”).  Finally, and worst of all, we have now developed a group of individuals who feel empowered to make statements in text and social media responses that they would never dare to say to someone in person.  I sincerely believe that the increase in abbreviated written communication has also led to a decrease in being polite and courteous.  Do we really want to end up in a future where we rely upon an automated attendant to address all our needs because there are no humans left that are capable of talking?  And no, I absolutely refuse to utilize “live chat”!  It is not “live” nor is it a “chat”… it’s texting and it takes far longer to resolve a matter than it would if you could just speak with an intelligent human!  OK, OK, I admit I have tried it and I discovered that I too can say things in a text response that I would never say in person.

Trust me, I have plenty more examples and areas of frustration.  Could customer service people manage if their system went down?  Why do we need to apologize when “our system is running slow”?  Did you know that I can read two languages, English and cursive!  Does anyone review their bank statement, credit card statements, or balance the checkbook anymore?  Ugh…

When I was starting high school, my mother told me that I could take any courses I liked, but she had too that I had to take: speech and bookkeeping.  I’m guessing she would have added English to the list but new that it was required.  Now, as I reflect back, I recognize just how wise she was…

P.S. You can’t imagine how hard it was to right write this blog with all the grammatical errors.  I don’t know why it bothered me; spell check gave me a A+!

P.S.S. Do you wonder whether Hailey Bieber has ever eaten a doughnut?