My Low-Tech Life
Seventeen Magazine
Karen Good
July 1995
I was my father’s answer to the remote control. “Karennnnn!” his bellow would come—loudly, urgently—from the den. I’d run out of my room and see him, just chillin’, sprawled out on the couch. “Turn the channel for Daddy, wouldja?” he’s say—softly, sweetly—the television being a full, oh, six feet away. “Go ahead,” my mother would tease. “This is what we had children for.” I think she meant it.
Despite the fact that the rest of the world had zoomed onto the technological superhighway, myfamily was sputtering along a lonely dirt road in a ’71 Buick. When they were growing up, my parents had the no-frills experience: “A refrigerator, lights, and an iron—that’s all we needed.” And if they wanted something they really didn’t need, it was save up or shut up. My parents tried to pass these values on to me and my brother. Of course, I wanted everything: electric toothbrush, battery-heated mittens, VCR, cordless phone, Easy-Bake oven. For a while, I didn’t know what I was missing. My Winnie the Pooh record player was all I needed to hear Diana Ross scream, “I want MUSCLES!” Heck, out on the street with Grandma’s portable (when stuffed with 48 DDD batteries) tape player, I was fierce—until I found out my friends were at home watching music on MTV. When I asked if we could get it, my mother’s obvious answer was: “Television you pay for?!”
When I wanted a home video game, I argued that the key word was “home”: I wouldn’t have to be driven to the arcade. My mother’s translation: homework diversion. I kept pushing. It would sharpen my motor skills? Not. Desperate, I tried The Last-Ditch Effort: Everyone else has one. “I’m not everyone else’s mother,” was her response, suggesting that if my current living situation was so bad, I should go live with someone else. She even offered to help me pack.
So I tried. Sort of. I would troop over to my friends’ houses at ungodly hours, strategically positioning myself near the television and the buzzing, blinking, addiction wonders of their Sega systems.
Back at home, progress was pitiful. On the telecommunications front, while my friends were begging for private phone lines, I was still trying to get Moms to trade in the rotary for a push-button. I realized more aggressive guerrilla tactics were in order when I came home one day and found my parents twisting the day away, blasting Chubby Checker on the family “stereo”—a record player so large that a child could play jacks on it. (I know. I was that child.)
So I thought it was time to show them how these “newfangled” things—like a stereo with a radio and cassette player—worked. I’d drag them to the discount mart, where they’d finger the electronics merchandise and sometimes go all out and ask for a demo. But, invariably, just when I thought I’d converted them, they’d say something cruel, like “That’s really nice, dear. And how will you be paying for it?”
Hint taken, I was forced to work with what I had. And no one can say I didn’t try. Large signs that read “QUIET, please!” were plastered on my door while I pushed my cassette recorder beside my radio (which I’d won from the local station via rotary superdial). In my earnest attempts to record my favorite songs, my tape deck also picked up the sounds of the phone ringing down the hall and the occasional car horn from out on the street. I audiotaped movies (when they aired on regular TV) the same—way commercials and all.
Truth be told, sometimes my parents would go a little crazy and rent a VCR. And I suppose I should be grateful for their example of techno-restraint; as a result, I’m not what I call a “techno-ho.” I can survive—no problem—with no beeper, no cell phone, no laptop with fax/modem. I recently bought my first TV, though I still haven’t joined the human race and ordered cable. (Perhaps you can see the peak of my roof antenna from where you live, six states away.) As for my parents, I think they eventually decided to get a dish-washer and garage-door opener when they realized my brother and I were serious about leaving for college. And into my first year at college, they broke down and bought a VCR. My mom still hasn’t bought a respectable stereo, though: Her clock radio works just fine, thanks. And she fondly remembers my Winnie turntable. “That was a good record player,” she says adamantly. “It still works.”
