‘A2- Wednesday, September 7, 1983 - North Shore News

ROBERT FULFORD, the editor of Saturday
Night, once wrote a regular column for the
Toronto Star. When he quit, he said it was
because “I gat sick of growing up in public.”

I guess you have to learn I
to be willing to make a fool
of yourself if you want to

complained that
telephones caused actual
brain damage, that tape
recorders were bad for the
ability to listen, and that
writing itself had been on a

keep ‘on in
newspapers.

Case in point: for years, I

writing

have thought of myself as a downhill slope ever since the
sort of futurist, somebody quill was abandoned.

who tried to imagine what Who could argue with
tomorrow might bring. that?

I. wrote a newspaper
column back in the late
1960s wherein I harangued .
readers for being reluctant’
to embrace the brave new
world that we humans were
creating despite ourselves.

I also wrote a couple of -:
books about what the future
would bring (providing it
didn't go poof), one of which
was based on a computer
metaphor, namely that even
if it looks like we are
fashioning our own doom, at
a deeper lével we are ac-
tually setting up the foun- .
dations of a fabulous Billion- -
Year Golden age of some |

Yet what a difference ..
between what I thought —
and ponitficated — and the
way in which I actually
behaved!

At home, the “futurist”
shunned even the use of an_;
electric. typewriter on the ~
grounds, inevitably
presented in a grumpy tone -
of voice, that my old
mechanical Underwood .
portable had got me this far, ©
thanks, why change?

Witness
sought

NORTH VANCOUVER |°|
RCMP are looking for an -
attractive young blonde. a
The reason is that the -
woman may be a witness to
an armed robbery that took _.
place at the Lynn Valicy |
Market at 10:30 p.m. Friday. ‘
No weapon was produced
but the threat was made and ..
a lone male madc off with
about $200. .
He is described as being -
between five feet, 10 inches
in height and weighing 180 to
190 pounds, with short, curly ”'
hair that is blonde or light —
brown. He was wearing gray -.
jogging shorts and white
runners. .
The woman is believed to
have been in the store at the -
same time as the man,
Anyone with information
is asked to contact Cst.
Keith Davidson at 985-1311,
local 428.

But my deepest loathing
was reserved for the dreaded
computer. I bragged that I
had quit working for a
particular newspaper on the
very day that the first Video
Display Terminal ‘was
trundled into the newsroom

I still tend to skirt around.
a VDT, ideally holding a
lead shield between the~
family jewels -and_ the
machine, always mindful of
the idea that
another kid.

¥ might want-

In recent years, I have
’ given vent to my essentially

reactionary conservativism formation and. enhanced.

when it. comes to computers,
without: ever ° ‘having come
. Fight out’and- repudiated my
own . futuristic advocacy

about a computer revolution,

a decade before. Glad I
didn’t.repudiate it, because,
gee, here it is time to grow
up in public again.

Someone finally  suc-
ceeded in showing me how a
computer can actually work
for me, and it blew my mind,
as they used to say.

It finally does compute.

I run what I like to call a
litle Mom and Pop com-
munications store, a family
affair where we try to
merchandise my words and,
ahem, ideas.

With a computer, we will
be able at the touch of a
button to perform feats of
reproduction and

- was available. I mean, I have -

r

distribution, to say nothing
of cross-pollination of in-

eC : ng.

head, . feeling like. an wi

nerdcake for having resisted
so long.

It‘is-a bit as though T have’

insisted on doing battle with

a sword ‘when a ldser beam.

been downright primitive j in
my approach to writing."
I begin to finally see what
Aldous Huxley m ant when
he ‘created -the.
called The ‘Savage in his
book, Brave New World. I.
always used to relate to The
Savage because of his un-.

‘corrupted nature, but now I :

see he was
evolutionary blob.

God help me but [ve.-
fallen in-love with a com-
puter. A-man-of my years.
The shame!

also an

vad unt 1 Dec
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