mook turns 87

When she was a little girl, my mother's siblings called her "Mook". This is because she couldn't pronounce the word "milk," and it came out "mook." The name stuck. All the cousins call her Aunty Mook. Her sisters still call her Mook.

Mook turned 87 today.

Recently, we were at a family gathering at a local restaurant. I helped Mook into the ladies room. It was one of these fully-automated restrooms, the kind with motion-detectors on everything -- sinks, toilet, paper towel holder.

Poor Mook was completely lost. "How do I flush the toilet?" "You don't," I replied, "it flushes itself when you stand up."

Turning on the sink was a feat in itself. Even computer geek me couldn't get the motion detector to turn the water on.

Once Mook's hands were wet, it was another challenge to get the paper towels to come out of the electronic holder. Again, no matter how many hand-passes across its little red sensor, I couldn't hit it just right for those towels to come streaming out. I finally did it.

When we visited the restroom a second time that night, we went through the entire process all over again. It doesn't help that Mook is nearly 100% blind to begin with.

Here are just a few of the things that have been invented or changed since Mook's birth in 1920:

• The tumble dryer


• Refrigerator/freezers for home use


• Hairdryers


• Television


• Color Television


• Video-tape recorder


• Digital video recorder


• The Walkman


• Portable cassette player/recorder


• Cathode-ray tube


• Computers


• MS-DOS


• Electric typewriters


• Liquid Paper (aka "White Out")


• Cordless telephone


• Mobile telephones (1947!!)


• Push-button telephone


• The modem


• The microchip


• Remote control devices


• Commercial (passenger) airplanes


• Jet engine


• Liquid-fueled rockets


• The helicopter


• Radar


• Doppler Radar


• Hi-fi/stereo sound equipment


• The jukebox


• The dynamic loudspeaker


• The car radio


• Frequency modulation (FM radio)


• The transistor


• Stereo recordings


• The drive-in movie theater


• 3-D movies


• Polariod photography


• The photocopier


• Adhesive tape


• The Band-Aid


• Bubble gum


• Pez candy


• Barbie dolls


• Cabbage Patch kids


• The ball-point pen


• The aqualung scuba-diving tank


• The lie-detector


• Insulin


• Penicillin


• Tetracycline


• Oral contraceptives


• Traffic signals


• Frozen food


• Cake mix


• McDonald's


• Spiral-bound notebooks


• Nylon


• Teflon


• Neoprene


• Velcro


• Contact lenses


• Aerosol spray cans


• Canned beer


• Credit cards


• ATM machines


• Post-It notes


• The Segway human transporter