The Cheap Seats

Post. Like. Friend. Text. Tweet. Share. Blog. Pod. Pad. Droid. Touch. Cloud. Google. Safari. Bing. Web. Viral. Wifi. Wiki. App. 3G. 4G. Link. Attach. MP3. JPEG. PDF. The 21st century is a daunting place. The proliferation of desktops, PC's, laptops, tablets and smart phones has added to the jargon of the English language. These new twists on old and familiar words can be - to a middle-aged man like me - a bit bewildering. I was born in one age and now live in another. When I graduated from high school, my home had one telephone - it was rotary dialing device and was equipped with something we used to call a "cord". Our television offered four channels, and I had to walk over to it and turn a knob in order to change the station from ABC, CBS, NBC or PBS. Consequently, there was no channel-surfing. Tweets were made by birds and clouds were in the sky. A web was something insects were occasionally trapped in. No one "googled". I sat in front of a computer

I met my first friend on the first day of 1st grade. It was an early September day like so many since, but fixed securely in my memory. His name was Tim.  It was our first recess of the new year. Like many young boys attempting to establish dominance over the playground, Tim issued me a challenge, as if the schoolyard was a jungle clearing and he was the old silverback gorilla. "Hey, do you wanna race?" I meekly accepted and Tim quickly mapped out our course. Somewhere in my six-year old mind the concept of a "hustle" was forming, but backing down didn't seem like an option.  We toed a chalky starting line hastily scratched out on the pavement. At the command, "Go!", Tim and I tore down the asphalt. To his horror and my surprise, we were running neck and neck. Duly frightened, Tim pulled away, narrowly escaping defeat. "Nice race," he gasped between breaths, "I'm Tim. Who are you?" I replied with my full name. "

I am a middle-aged man and recently had my first fake heart attack. Everyone should have one. Not a real heart attack of course, but the kind that makes a person pause and take silent inventory of one's life. Mine came suddenly on a late July evening while visiting family. After spending the previous 36 hours propelling my body forward at a rate much faster than it was normally used to, I found myself barraged with the classic infarction symptoms - aching in the left arm and chest, and something unexpected that made me sit up and take notice - a pulling tightness across my throat, as if my skin were being stretched beyond its limits. After a quick confirming glance at WebMD, I was mentally reviewing the status of my health insurance plan. "Deductible met yet?" I found myself wondering. The answer, I knew, was no. So, for the next two ridiculous hours I wavered between ignoring the pain and restricted breathing and saving a buck, or letting my father drive me to th