TO THE DEVIL WITH "READ ONLYS"

For two days now I have been struggling with this heinous program, wasting hours and hours, when all I wanted to do was download or print out a new roster of our HCW club membership. Whoever devised this inscrutable complicaton and inserted it into  computers to bedevil the lives of simple souls like me should be  transported into a complex maze in which he can wander forever. What earthly use can a rad-only be,  anyway?
I suppose there must be some subtle purpose for it somewhere. But why can't it be optional, at least? It wastes the time I could spend in friendly chat rooms and makes me throw up my hands in despair and turn my back on what was supposed to be a user-friendly computer.

FUTURE USES OF THE PAST

Because of my strong feeling that offering our own histories to today's readers will give them wiser perspectives on bettering their own lives, I have written three memoirs of my experiences in the most critical periods of the past century.

 As the country -- in fact the world -- stands teetering on the brink, trying to escape another major slump, my tales of living through the Great Depression of the Thirties becomes more and more pertinent. That was in my student days, when we learned a hundred ways of surviving -- even enjoying -- life with much  ingenuity but little cash.

 Now we become maudlin over old memories of dates spent on the Hudson River on summer evenings, when the ferry to New Jersey cost a nickel, no matter how many times you crossed. Or how we could see a Broadway matinee -- and lunch for a total of $1.05. Them were the days, as Archie used to say.

Had a lovely day yesterday. My writers' group (HCW) held their annual Book Awards party, and it was a  roaring success. Many members dressed up in fantastic costumes and awards were given in eight categories. I got one for my third memoir, The Whirligig of Time. Many kind and flattering speeches were made and I felt wonderfully cherished and even  admired -- nothing like it to perk up a threadbare ego. What a great spirit pervades this fellowship -- women and men; old, young and in between; natives and immigrants -- all imbued with a passion to string words together into ideas and feelings to share with each other and the world. Our second and fourth Thursday mornings together are precious to me; they warm my spirit. VIVA HCW!

COMPUTER WOES

Another morning wasted with computer glitches. No wonder I get discouraged ,  and throw up my hands in disgust. It's supposed to be so much easier to communicate now, but when I typed on my old trusty Royal, or even the electric IBM, at least the words stayed where you put them. This is my second try at today's Blog. The first one suddenly disappeared when halfway done. You never know when you might inadvertently push a button that control something lethal.

It may well be that these sudden outbursts of temperament had a big role in my repeated neglects of the network connections I had established. Even a new computer, which  I hoped would be easier to conquer, has only created new frustrations.

Well now that I've got my grumble off my chest, I might do better tomorrow. Today, time has run out. The other parts of my life demand me. At least I'm showing up.

RAINY THOUGHTS

After three days of rain, it's hard to think of cheerful thoughts to blog about. People are posting pictures of flooded  roads and rivers even here in our mountains.  where I'd never thought I'd see them.
With daily disasters shown on the news, my own problems seem very small by comparison. Yet while I live I must concentrate on how to get people to read my books, into which I put my life and experiences under so many stresses, and which I want to share with the world.
I'm reading others' stories and beginning to realize that everybody has a story to tell, and the help it gives others to share them -- how that gives us a deeper perspective ou own living. So I'm hoping I won't give up this time, but keep on blogging about my Russian childhood during the early years of the revolution, my college love story in the Great Depression years, and my fractured life during World War II.

Am I the oldest person who ever wrote a blog? Most probably not. I will be 99 on my next birthday in October, but it's amazing how many of us nonagenarians there are in the world today. The question is, why should all the younger people read what we write in our blogs? Reading our stories might help them understand how their world got the way it is now.  The memoirs that I wrote in the past ten years tell about my life during three of the most critical periods of the last century. They are described in my website:  norapercival.com.

Why We Write Blogs

Why is it so hard for me to write a blog? It oght to be a cinch after writing four books and editing two others. But I find myself stalled just as badly as when, like many writers, I would dry up during the writing of a book. Suddenly you find yourself finding excuses -- first I need to play three computer games, like an athlete doing his warmup stretches before a game begins. Or I need to look up something on the internet, usually something I might need three chapters later. Or anything to distract me from actually writing a blog, like the legendary sharpening of pencils before setting down to writing, back in the days when we used pencils instead of computers to write with. Why?

My best guess is that I'm discouraged by my problems in setting my books up to be sold via the internet, but also my inabioity to find an effective way to make internet users aware that they existe and of interest to readers in their field. When I sell books in local stores or fairs I do it by attracting passersby  to listen to my story, person to person. How can I reproduce this situation on the internet, so the story goes out and creates public interest .without my physical presence? I know it can be done, since many people do it successfully. I'm hoping some of them will respond to my blog and give me some good advice.