- Go back in time and imagine standing in a smoky scupltor's
workshop about two thousand years ago. The artist doesn't know you're there,
and by torchlight we see the artisan carefully hammering away at a large
block of marble. Etched deep within his wonderful creative mind is an image
of his country's leader he seeks to release from the stone.
-
- Far away in another land and another time, another artist
carefully mixes paints on a palette to paint a portrait. In yet another
time many years later, Leonardo is carefully crafting a model of his flying
machine.
-
- We move ahead in time to the 1900's. Nichola Tesla is
busy designing and building many different types of circuits and machines
to utilize alternating current. Inventors everywhere are creating numerous
types of mechanical devices, and then hurriedly rush their designs to the
US patent office.
-
- Up in the Northwest, miners are busily digging for gold
like prairie dogs in search of their life's fortune. A small bag is filled
with tiny nuggets rushed off on horseback to the local assay office to
determine their worth. At the same time, another set of hands works a shovel
to dig a grave for another departed miner.
-
- Moving on to the sixties, it was the skilled hands and
creative minds of Shockley, Bardeen and Brattain that created the first
transistor. Some years later, Jack Kilby created the first integrated circuit
having only a handful of transistors. Today the number of transistors in
an integrated circuit numbers in the millions.
-
- Robert Noyce was awarded the first patent for an integrated
circuit on April 25, 1961. The integrated circuit is the grandfather of
all of today's electronics and computers. Skilled hands using microscopes
hand-wired the inside of many of the first integrated circuits, years before
automated machinery was used to wire the edges of chips to package leads.
-
- Human hands controlled by brilliant minds have advanced
our life to where it is today and gave us more free time. Inspiration and
perspiration are required to form the virtual crucible that moves technology,
medicine and art to the next plateau.
-
- In the late seventies, solid-state technology found its
way into countless living rooms and bedrooms across the country in the
form of video games. Children and adults alike played countless video games
like Baseball, Frogger and Packman for hours and hours every day. There
were many children and adults who became addicted to a given type of game,
perhaps the result of an adrenaline rush. Children, friends, spouses and
relationships all increasingly suffered while game addicts pounded away
on buttons and joysticks. And this was only the tip of the proverbial iceberg.
-
- Before video games were everywhere local television stations
would often say something during a commercial break such as "It's
ten o'clock do you know where your children are?" Those taught
to drive were regularly instructed, "When you drive through neighborhood
streets, drive slowly. Small children chasing a ball can run out in front
of you from between two parked cars."
-
- Today parents think they know where their children are
but still do not. And what of those children out in the yard playing ball?
Where are they now? If you see even one child today playing out in a yard
while driving, pull over and go knock on the door and congratulate the
parents! You are witnessing something that's become rarer each day - children
using their entire bodies for fun and not just their thumbs!
-
- Most of us have fond memories of growing up of someone
or some place where memorable things happened. Or perhaps memories of someone
like our father or mother teaching us something when we're young that will
come in handy in our adult lives. Or a fond memory as I have of my father
teaching me various skills. Saturdays were a day I looked forward to. Even
after passing into adulthood, he would call me to come help him on some
project he was doing that couldn't be done by him alone.
-
- This past month I was deeply honored to be asked by our
grandson to help him on his science project. While I worked on his project
with him, my mind was frequently reminded of wonderful memories of my late
father teaching me at an equally young ago to use a saw, an electric drill
and how to wire and solder connections. It all came flooding back into
my mind as I watched my young grandson at the brink of his teenage years
solder his first electrical connections. Similar memories came back while
teaching my son similar things a couple decades ago. And it all comes down
to using our hands.
-
- I pose this question to young parents today what
memories and skills will your children carry with them into adulthood?
Did you teach them know how to replace the brakes on their vehicle for
that future day when they cannot afford to have it done for them? Or how
to replace a light switch when it quits? How to change the oil in a vehicle,
or simply grease a squeaky car door hinge? Or replace a door lock on the
door of a home? How to change a spark plug in a car or a lawn mower? Will
they know how to use a electric or hand saw? Or select the right size drill
bit for an electric drill for a woodscrew? Or build something from scratch?
-
- Or will your children become adults and be forced to
find skilled help for any electrical or mechanical job they need done?
If you don't teach them any of these things, then you are seriously negligent
in your duties to prepare them for adult life. Any parent that thinks their
child will do so well in life right out of school that they will always
be able to hire someone for these jobs, are parents who are simply lying
to themselves. It's absolutely never too late to teach your children simple
skills to survive, no matter what age they are.
-
- WRITING A BOOK AND THROWING IT AWAY
-
- As a parent, what legacy will you leave to your children?
Too many children are spending the majority of their childhood working
their thumbs to send pointless messages on cell phones or PDAs. They cross
streets texting away without even lifting their eyes to notice oncoming
traffic. But are these real skills needed for survival as adults or to
get their first job? Would any parent encourage their children to write
a book with a mechanical typewriter which doesn't store a single word
and then tell them to throw out the manuscript which took years to write?
This is precisely what happens with thumbing messages into a cell phone.
It's a complete and utter waste. Even the phone eventually ends up in the
trash.
-
- Children and adults who thumb-type hundreds of pages
of text with a cell phone or PDA will end up without one single useful
result to show for it - except hundreds of lost hours of their lives.
-
- Beside hundreds of lost hours, a child's reward for years
of texting can be carpal tunnel or nerve damage problems that can last
a lifetime or require corrective surgery. Is that a legacy any parent would
be proud to give their children? And to imagine parents are paying a phone
company every month for their child to have that phone, to write a pointless
book and depriving their children of many hours of learning and creativity.
Sounds like madness to me.
-
- Mindlessly throwing away all these productive and useful
hours of a child's life is perhaps the greatest travesty of all. Who in
their right mind would encourage it?
-
- Our world economy will remain difficult for many years
to come. Every task or repair we teach our children is important for survival.
Teaching our children and grandchildren to use their hands for creative
and profitable pursuits is far more important than watching television,
texting, surfing the internet or playing mindless video games.
-
- There is nothing in life that can ever replace gifts
of creativity and advancements given to the world which were made by skilled
hands connected to creative minds. Absolutely nothing whatsoever.
-
- As the Sun sets each day, can we look back on the day's
events and feel we made the best of it with our hands? Or that we found
some time to teach our children or grandchildren something useful and wonderful?
There is an old expression which remains timeless people don't appreciate
what they have until they don't have it anymore.
-
- -Ted Twietmeyer
-
- Photo credit - http://www.allposters.com/-st/Chris-Briscoe-Posters_c60775_.htm
|
