ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, June 10, 1996 TAG: 9606100019
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: Ben Beagle
SOURCE: BEN BEAGLE
Well, as we used to say a lot in Radford, they've gone and done it now.
That is to say that this school in Boston has put out a yearbook in CD-ROM, which means you can put this disk in your computer - if you have a computer that does CD-ROM - and see and even listen to your classmates.
Great. So they go to the 20th reunion and instead of a few well-handled yearbooks and senior play programs to get mawkish about, there's this computer with this disk.
This is not the kind of stuff that will give you a sentiment seizure, although it probably means more business for the cash bar.
I know that the Republicans and Democrats are worried to death about our children this election year, but I believe the above may be a good reason to see that they are computer-disadvantaged.
"Computer-disadvantaged." I don't mind telling you I'm proud to have written that. I think it means we ought to buck the times and show our children that there is more to humanity and life than megabytes.
I think we ought to make them write their lessons in flimsy, old-fashioned tablets with fountain pens that leak and gum up the pages.
A CD-ROM yearbook?
You obviously can't write anything in it. I think this will rob our children of an important part of their lives and deprive the world of some great primitive literature.
Unless we act now, they won't sit around in the years to come, reading those messages written honestly and passionately the day the yearbooks came out. They won't say: "Gosh, I'd forgotten all about Ramona Binks and the great time we had that Halloween."
They'll never read:
"Dear Nutsie: We did have fun in Spanish class, didn't we?
"I'll never forget the time you put that dead frog down Erma Hamtramck's neck in biology.
``Your friend for life,
``Mugsie."
"Dear Lionel: Our date for the senior prom will live always in my memory. I hope you'll forgive me for going with Herschel Biggers at the last minute. Herschel and I want you at our wedding.
``All my love,
``Cassandra."
"Dear Killer: I'll miss you butchering people on the right side of the line next year. I always felt safe in the pocket with you up there.
``Cheers,
``Erma.
``(P.S. I'll always remember the way you maimed that moron for putting that frog down my neck in biology.)''
If you click on Erma and Killer on a disk, all you get is a picture of the football squad.
LENGTH: Medium: 58 linesby CNB