by Janicegail Slone

Created on: April 05, 2007   Last Updated: April 13, 2007

Webster defines accomplished as done successfully, completed,skilled, proficient,having social poise, polished. To say I have any of the above when it comes to computer skills remains to be seen, however, let me take you back to early November of 05 when I thought a mouse was a little gray creature than ran around the house scaring people to death; I thought surfing was done on a surf board on the water, and I thought an icon was a head of state, a very important person. None of which I knew applied to a box that set on a desk in people's office, kitchen, or where one might keep their computer. I was computer illiterate, to say the least, and had commented many times," I hoped I would go to heaven before I'd ever have to learn a computer." Computer skills were for the 'young and restless' not this 59 year old woman, whose world had made many turns. Yet it seemed the world became more demanding in their demand for all to have a computer. The nerve of those people, many times you'd hear from the T.V., "now to enter this contest, or to respond to this question, just go to www. ? . com. I would say to my husband, "now what's a person suppose to do that doesn't have a computer," many times he'd say,"I guess you're just left out, or you'll have to learn a computer. On a particular incident, I was ask to be help coordinate a certain project, and the comment was made, she can't do that, "Why she doesn't even have a computer."

I knew I was really behind the times, when we had three young family members at our home for a sleep over, they camped out in our living room, with tents their Momma had made them for Christmas, the two girls would sleep in one and little brother in the other, however he would travel back and forth for a visit. Their pretend world took them to the wiles of the desert on a camping trip, yet I was amused by his comment and he sojourned back to his tent, he called out to the girls, "now if you need anything during the night, "you can reach me a WWW.COM." I decided I'd take my husband up on his offer of, 'you take computer classes and learn how to use one, and I'll buy you a computer.'

In our community the local library teams up with the school system to offer adult education classes in 'beginner computer skills'. I grabbed my mouse and surf board and took the plunge, and believe me, there were many times, I thought I would drown. The waves of, "right click, left click, tool bar, maximize, minis, now turn off your computer you click on start" just to

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