The information superhighway was a little too fast for my self-taught computer skills in the beginning , butas soon as I got my learner’s permit, I headed for the backroads. Pretty soon I was driving like a Tennessee moonshiner...
Drag Racing on the Information Superhighway

by Diana Finlay

GET ALONG RANCH, TEXAS--My eyes were blurred from late-night driving for hours on the infobahn, and my mind weary from the incredible amount of information “on-line.” A sense of panic had overtaken me as I tossed and turned through the wee hours of the morning and restful sleep eluded me. Though we’d been wired for a couple of days, I hadn’t seen everything on the Internet. I hadn’t looked up Bob Dylan or sheep shearing or South Carolina’s state flower. So much information right there in the dining room, and time was wasting as I attempted sleep.
Yet, with the morning light, I turned my back to the Netscape screen and trudged off to my office (where we are safely off-line), in hopes of getting some work done. I left instructions as to time limits for the kids on the Net, and drove away smiling at the mental picture of one child using the vast resources to do her economics homework and another e-mailing his cousins on the farm in West Texas, while the third waited patiently to see if Warner Brothers had a Bugs Bunny page.
On the way into town, I had second thoughts. I wondered if this addition to our home would change life as we know it. Would my children become addicted to the world-wide web? Would they sneak into the dining room late at night and dial up those smarmy chatlines to make friends with strangers named sicko@funnyuncle.net? Would we stop communicating at the dinner table and forget how to write real letters on nice stationery? What was this evil incarnation that had come into our home? Would we lose all sense of balance? What would bring us back to earth?
I think of the early Internet commercial that was a play on The Little Prince, where the child said “I see a day when there will be no here and there. Everything will be here and now.”
Is “everything here and now” necessarily a good thing? Am I just a naysaying technophobe or does anyone else ever wish this world would spin a little slower every now and then?
I like the concept of the Internet. I am totally fascinated by the wealth of information out there. I can look up scholarship information and a recipe for butternut squash soup and Kris Kristofferson song lyrics and a schedule of events for Luckenbach, Texas. And there are still some subjects I haven’t even thought to look up yet. Peter, Paul and Mary... chinchilla farming... duct tape...ice cream recipes...Portuguese Water Dogs...
And what about e-mail? I like to think it takes the place of long distance phone conversations. My mother and I can correspond daily between Martindale and South Carolina, even if only to say “I’m okay,” and “What are you fixing for supper?” Rather than lying awake at night thinking of the band booster phone call I forgot to make, I can get up and e-mail that information to a committee-mate. My daughter can correspond with her friends who have already gone off to college about the ways of the real world.
I have even e-mailed my friend in Staples to remind her of an upcoming PTSO meeting. How about that — this big old information superhighway has an on-ramp near Martindale and an off-ramp in downtown Staples, only 3 miles away as the cowbirds fly.
But I have to feel guilty. I enjoy sending and receiving mail. I look toward the thousands of letters and pieces of correspondence that Larry L. King has donated to the Southwestern Writers Collection at SWT and wonder if this kind of motherlode of human communication will meet an untimely death through e-mail. Somehow I want to fight the trend to allow pressing a button marked “Send” to replace SWAK.
At the office, things seemed normal until the boss invited me toward the blue glow in his office. He has a Net hookup for his PC and was looking at the Doppler Weather Radar. “Look. This satellite shot was taken less than five minutes ago,” he pointed out as I stared into the screen.
He continued, “Right now, we’re looking at the weather as it is happening. Actual shots from hundreds of miles up in the air. That hurricane is whipping up some weather in the Atlantic. And look at this bright green and red line mass. It tells us it’s going to rain right here in San Marcos.” He shook his head in amazement. “It’s all right here on the Net.”
I stepped out of his office and glanced through the plate glass window toward the world outside. Sure enough. It is going to rain right here, in San Marcos. As big drops started to splash on the pavement, I watched -- as it was happening.