What are the best and worst things that were introduced in your lifetime?

How do you answer a question like that? In some cases the same thing would fit both categories. Some people who had problems or troubles with new things would think they were certainly not on the good side. Yet others who caught on quickly felt there had never been anything better. I am interested in what you as an individual would chose for each category. To be fair about it, I, must make some choices.

Let's start with the best things. As I am writing this column I am using a computer. When the column is completed including having the computer use the spell and grammar check, I will send it in to the newspaper. Also, in the background I can hear my washing machine wash the sheets from our bed while the dryer sitting next to it is drying my other white laundry. I am drinking a glass of Dr. Pepper in an insulated glass with an attached straw. It has been cooled by ice from the ice maker in our refrigerator. Outside, Lester is getting his aging pick up closer to the door to load it with bags of recyclable things to take to the recycling center.

Almost everything I have mentioned in that paragraph was new in my lifetime. Well, I guess there were pick-up trucks in my life-time, but not ones with automatic shifts, collapsible seats, air conditioners and heaters. Any washing machines were run by human power, not by a plug in the wall, and all dryers were outside maybe between two trees. If I wanted a cooled drink I would have had to brew some tea and chip ice off a 100 pound chunk in the icebox, if I was even living close to an ice route. I don't think Dr. Pepper had been invented before I appeared on the scene, and if it had, I doubt there would have been any in my family's home. So that leaves the computer. It certainly is new and at one time it would have been on my worst list, but now I can't get along without it.

Now Lester has come inside to cool off in our air conditioned home while sitting under a ceiling fan. He is catching the news while he rests by watching the 24 hour news channel on our television set. He also has a news magazine open and if it weren't Monday when no newspaper is published here, he would have the local paper nearby as well. Earlier today I watched a couple of segments on the Game Show Network to get in a light-hearted mood to write my column. It allows me to see some of our now departed comedians again and enjoy their humor that I can understand better than some I hear on the prime time shows. (I know I sound like an old fogey, but that is probably what I am). Again, we have many new things being used and/or enjoyed.

So, are any of those things the best? Which would you be willing to be without? Are any of these things the worst?

We didn't get a television until many of our friends had already purchased one. Now we have four, plus Shirley has one upstairs in her apartment. I want to be up-to-date on the local and national news and the TV helps with that. But the newspapers and news magazine perhaps give the news in more depth. I haven't even mentioned radio yet, or stereos, or disks of movies, or of six movies showing at the same time in little old Nevada. We really are in touch with everything that we want to be.

So I'll answer my own question about which is the best and the worst. It is the same thing in my book. After resisting for years I am now on Facebook. It is the best for letting me get better acquainted with relatives and friends. Even those who I see often give glimpses of their life that I wouldn't have known at all. But it is the worst because it takes too much time and uses time that I could have used to write, call or visit friends and relatives to get to know them face-to-face.

But as an old game player who can't always find someone to play with, I would say that Scrabble on Facebook is the best. What did you choose?