Taking Stock of My Situation

   Sometimes my finger slips on the touch pad and my column submits itself six times without my realizing it. Last week my column spent two days lost in cyberspace before landing in my editor's inbox. Then to top things off, my editor said when I cut and paste, all kinds of weird characters get interjected into my text. And there seems to be no explanation for any of this. I'm not computer shy and I'm really not all that big a klutz. 

   In fact, thirty-six years ago when I was a graduate assistant and, except for a secretary, the only woman working in the science department, I was queen of the computer. We only had one and part of my job was to find enough uses for it to justify its cost. Seems the administration was upset that the science department blew their whole budget on something so useless.

   So when I wasn't conducting science workshops or teaching the metric system with-Can you believe this? -Benson & Hedges 100s, I was creating ways to use the computer.

   The contraption we had was called ComShare. It looked like a typewriter with a roll of newsprint under the keys. We hooked up to a giant computer in New Jersey by telling the operator, "This is data transmission. Do not monitor, interrupt or disconnect." We then placed the receiver in a cradle attached to the computer and shared time bites with forty other computers all over the country. 
First I printed out the professors' schedules on grids that could be quickly changed each semester. Then I cross-referenced the entire faculty by last name, department and committees on which they served. My proudest moment was the unveiling of my talking computer program.

   "Hi, what's your name?" 

   "Johnny." 

   "Welcome to the science department, Johnny. What's your teacher's name?" 

   "Miss Jones." 

   "Is Miss Jones nice, Johnny?" 

   You get the idea. 

   I don't know if the administration was impressed with any of this, but one day I did hear the professors talking about how ComShare stock was predicted to go up and that it was already at twenty-nine and a good time to buy. Now my phone bill at the time was five dollars a month. I was making $1500 a year, plus what I picked up in tips working as a waitress on weekends, so I didn't have a cent to spare. Would it be worth having my phone disconnected for half a year in order to buy one share of stock? 

   Well, the computer industry obviously took off. ComShare evolved into a software company and now generates gazillions of ways to use computers. Now if they'd just come up with a program to get my column to the Post every week without any glitches, I think I'd scrape together enough money to buy some stock in the company! 


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