Today, a new participant in the social experiment known as The Internet will wander onto the game board. My father, who has knowledge and experience on the world wide web, will now have access in his own home.
You'd be surprised at the number of 'previous generationers' online at any given moment. I speak to Medicare patients all day long and often hear the word 'e-mail' drop from their lips in the same sentence as 'colonoscopy' and 'pacemaker.' Our parents, grandparents and occasionally beyond are typing their way into this instant-news, viral-video, mass-networking world. My generation has become enslaved to our keyboards but if you look at the person surfing the web next to you at the library, chances are they've got a few decades on you.
It has given me pause, though. Is the Zaedah found online someone my father will recognize in real life? Is there anything connected to my penname that I wouldn't want him to see? What will he learn of his child by roaming in cyberspace?
Would he be proud?
I'll have to let him answer that. I can only hope that I have been true to myself and the ideals, passions and beliefs that he's long seen in the flesh-and-blood me. I will welcome my daddy to this wired land and gladly guide him to everyplace his little girl inhabits.
And though we live a mere three streets apart, I expect an e-mail often, Poppa Smurf!
I think he would be very proud of you. Fathers have a way of being proud of ALL their children. Maybe some times it does not show but it is always there, just below the skin, living in the heart and if you look, you can see it shining in his eyes. So write on and be yourself and be proud of who you are and what you have become in life.
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