I'm beginning to understand why old men are often crotchety and out of sorts. It is because things keep getting "new and improved" on them. The intimation is that up until now thing weren't any damn good at all.

There's been New Coke, The New Brady Bunch, New Democrats, New Hollywood Squares and The News with Jon Stewart. There is even new math these days. I'm in hopes one of the enlightened young will find it in their hearts to come by and let me know what $454.12 minus $145.36 leaves these days so I can balance my checkbook.

I don't think there has been a laundry detergent in the last 40 years that has enjoyed a season of rest from being new, improved, or both.

Some things are naturally resistant to "newness". For example, if the New Christy Minstrels were to reform after their popularity in the early 60's what would they name themselves? If people from New York, New Jersey or New Hampshire someday flee to a new land to escape religious persecution, what will they call their new digs?

The primary problem with things being new is the leap in logic that often accompanies suggesting that new is therefore better. Everytime a "new" biography comes out about a historical figure, there is the conception that it is more accurate or more fully researched than its predecessor. An argument that flies in the face of logic. The further removed from the event, the greater the prospects for error and misconception. Any cub reporter can tell you that.

They claim new computers are getting better and better. Yet I can never remember having to reboot my typewriter or pay a 14 year old with terminal acne $75 an hour to come laugh at it.

I remember such a young man coming into my office a few years back to help me install some graphics programs. I asked him on what basis he could charge $75 per hour and he explained to me that he was a "consultant" and that was the going rate for young professionals such as he.

I asked him what he wanted to be when he grew up and he said a fireman...or a cowboy. I asked him if he realized that would involve a cut in pay and he said he wasn't worried because he was saving up a nice nestegg for when he got old, like me.

I paused momentarily to reflect upon the speed at which my father would have accelerated me from the room by which appendage had I looked him in the eye and informed him I was now a "consultant".

Actually this phenomena is growing to other fields of endeavor. A buddy's daughter recently had her sweet sixteen party and asked a kid with a record player to come over. My buddy was informed that the going rate for "deejays" was $45 an hour. The kid showed up with speakers the size of a 1953 Buick. I think God will use such speakers on Judgment Day for crowd control. It's no wonder the kid has to charge $45 an hour. He will need that money to keep himself in trusses.

But I digress. Back to the computer kid.

As my computer loaded the cut and paste portion of the software, I casually mentioned how pleased I was that the program featured that capability and how much work it would save. The young man confused my statement and thought I did not know the meaning of "cut and paste". I told him I did understand that much because we used the same term in the produciton room when that operation was done by hand with a knife and hot wax. The kid laughed and said "Yeah, right." as if he did not believe me.

I ushered him to a back office where I still had a layout table, cutting knife and hot wax roller. I showed him how it used to be done. I explained that "cut and paste" was not originally a computer function but a task performed by hand by people who worked in the Pasteup Department.

He left the room frowning at me doubtfully, stil not certain I wasn't having fun at his expense.

To him any technology older than 6 months was outdated, suspect and inferior.

What with 6 months now representing a "long time" and $75 an hour being a reasonable price for kids to charge for their time, perhaps it is good that there is a new math for us to ponder.

I wonder what they did with all that New Coke?