By Georgie Bright Kunkel

In an age of computer hacking and scams it is imperative to keep one’s private information secret. Every site that we visit on line therefore must be entered with a special password. The problem is that we then have to keep a file of passwords so that we can access the numerous accounts that we need to carry on our complex lives.

Once in a while I mess up and forget a password. Now don’t tell me I am getting old. It seems to be a common problem to forget at times. My explanation is that after a few years our memory banks are burgeoning with information and each little bit of stored data takes a little longer to access.

It is amazing how many passwords any one individual needs in carrying on one’s day to day life. I need a password to get into my bank vault. I need a password to operate my key box in case I forget the actual key to my house. I need a password to access my bank statements on line. I finally prepared an envelope holding all the passwords that I need to carry on my day to day business affairs. But it takes a while to sort through all of them to find anything in a hurry.

I remember hearing my brother once remark that he thought life would be much easier if he could just retreat to the wilderness and not be stressed out with city living. I also remember my mother telling about actually living in such a wilderness up in the hills of Lewis County. It was not all sweetness and light. There were wild animals lurking about near the house. There was water to be drawn from the well out near the back porth. There was a long walk to the country school every day. Summers were busy with plowing ground and putting in garden. Then came the canning of vegetables that needed to be immersed in a big boiler on the wood and coal stove in the kitchen. There was wood to bring in from the woodshed and fires to make in the dining room pot bellied stove and the kitchen range and often the fireplace in the living room. My mother modernized our home by cutting vents into the ceiling in order to allow the heat from downstairs to rise into the second story. I used to dream about that time in my life but reality is often distorted in dreams. In this recurring dream I would be able to go up into the second floor and find many more bedrooms than we ever really had upstairs. Compared to the complexities of rural life that my older brothers and sisters experienced, I had it easy. I was so much younger and was never expected to help cook or do dishes. That left me more time to work on my homework and be creative.

Compared to our life in the small town with our garden spot I should not complain about having to use passwords to access my techie life in the city. But each age has its frustrations. There are people whose occupation is to listen to the frustrations of modern city dwellers and try to help them manage their stress. But passwords aren’t the only modern frustration. Just go on Facebook and you will discover a whole new language of convenience. Every age has its shorthand speech, as I call it. No wonder that the dictionary has to be revised for each new generation. After all, the dictionary is just a reflection of the everyday language of people at any one time in history. We can’t all talk like a pedant with an advanced degree. In order to truly communicate we must not be too obtuse in our way of speaking. Each new age develops its own shorthand in speaking the language. We would all be shocked to suddenly go back in time and try to understand the speech of ages past. And we cannot dream of language as it will continually evolve into the future. So as I always say, let’s live in the present and enjoy the here and now.

Georgie Bright Kunkel is a freelance writer who can be reached at
gnkunkel@comcast.net or 206-935-8663.