Television came of age, everyone was buying their first TV and Grandma and Grandpa was no exception. The only problem was grandpa was not very good at speaking English. So what does he do? He sits down in front of the TV and learns how to speak it.If you worked as I did with computers when they first came out you learned as you went along. I had to learn several programs all at once! There was a writing program, a layout program called Quark Express, an Illustrator program and a Photoshop program all at once. There was an Internet to learn, ancillary programs to supplement the programs I was learning. You learned by applying yourself, constantly making mistakes overcoming the sense of being overcome by it all. You had better learn so you could oversee those under you who needed help.
Well, Grandpa had the same plan. He was smart, he learned at a low level first while watching Howdy Doody on the Dumont Network.
One late afternoon, because I was hungry, I walked over to Grandma’s house to smell the cooking and maybe get some Genoa salami and Provolone cheese before heading home for dinner.
As I walked into the kitchen, there sat Grandpa, legs crossed and arms folded, watching Howdy Doody! He hardly noticed me since he was so enraptured in the going-on’s of Clara Bell.
Grandma was a businesswoman with poor English and a lot of successful business going on, starting in the 1920s, as she built an empire of apartment houses, vegetable and fruit stands, and restaurants, all with grandpa’s help. She didn’t speak English well, but she could speak money fluently.
No comments:
Post a Comment