I'm 58 years old, and in my mind I tend to think of myself as a "young 58". When I peer into the mirror, however, there is no denying the truth. I'm not all that young anymore. I've always heard that age is a state of mind, and I tend to agree with that, except when it comes to technology.

There is something terribly amiss in my brain when it comes to "modern" technology.....and now, we have what I like to call the age of "ultra-modern", totally beyond my comprehension, technology. You see, I have a point of reference that is much different than that of people just a few years younger than me.

My junior year of college we had a major debate in one of my finance classes. Now there's nothing wrong with a good healthy debate, right? About what, you ask? Well, we were debating the unfair advantage (my viewpoint) of the students who could afford the newly introduced Texas Instruments hand held calculator. A device that had the capability, with the punch of a button, to calculate square and square root problems. When one is faced with solving financial equations this tool was a major advantage that poor boys like myself just couldn't afford. Of course at a private university like Tulsa, there weren't that many "poor boys" around....I lost the debate.

At the time I was recently married, living on a shoestring budget, and scraping together money for tuition by working an assortment of part-time jobs that paid anywhere from $2 to $3 per hour. Fortunately my new bride had landed a full-time job that paid $425 per month. We were not exactly flush with cash, and the cost of one of these fancy new calculators was $199. To put it into perspective, that amount of cash would make three payments on our mobile home, or our car, or pay one half of the tuition for the semester. In other words, a very major investment for us.

To make a long story shorter, we scrimped and saved, worked extra hours, and made the decision to invest in our future. Like most technology it made my life easier, and we never regretted the sacrifice we made.

Since that time technology has exploded. They now give away those little calculators as promotional items at the bank, and $199 will buy you a basic computer with more capacity than was ever imaginable when I was young.

And for those "poor boys" that are now attending college, the debate is over, technology is in the classroom to stay. Virtually every student takes a laptop computer to class to view the lesson plan being displayed as a PowerPoint presentation on the screen.

I've always embraced technology, I just don't pretend to understand it, and at my age I doubt that I ever will. After all , what do I know?