Progress: A Vent by Request

My Mum requested this. And who I am to deny a mother’s wish?

Mum likes to say, “In the good old days”.

OK, let’s see what that might mean in relation to Progress by looking at this specific example.

Updating Health Insurance Paperwork. “In the good old days” my Mum went down to a local Australian Unity Health Insurance branch. It was a shop-front store located only 10 minutes walk (3 minutes by car). There were counters with staff behind them, and if it was busy, you might have to wait in line.

When you were served, you laid your paperwork on the counter and completed the business at hand. The person behind the counter maybe offered some advice and perhaps helped fill in the correct form (or not… depending on the number of customers waiting in the queue). At best, a simple bill payment took a few minutes of your time. Or, if there was a complicated and difficult decision to be made between multiple alternatives, it took a little longer. Maybe 30 minutes, tops! Mum says that “in the good old days” she could complete all of this and walk away with a piece of paper in her hand to file away in the Health Insurance folder. It had certainly been done.

In “the good old days” Mum had a signed & stamped document. She could wave that in court if she had needed to.

Now, if we progress not a lot of years to the present time, the process of doing the same business is quite different. It has all pretty much become automated, with on-line forms to fill in, logins & passwords to keep secret, help-desk telephone numbers to call when it doesn’t work as planned. You then need to listen to the options… carefully… pressing buttons 1 or 2 or 3 or 4 or 5. Not forgetting the hash-key to activate your particular option. That places you in the queue. If you are anything like me, you begin to worry about how much battery you have left on your phone.

But why am I explaining all this? We all know about it. We have all experienced (or to use a much better word ‘endured’) waiting on-hold. We have all experienced the hours and days needed to work-through an error in the automated world.

Because, even if it all the technology works, there is one vital difference between “the good old days” and our present time. It is the uncertainty of the result. There will always remain an element of doubt that everything has in fact functioned correctly. Yes, it’s always a good idea to keep in mind that you have just returned from a journey into the virtual reality of cyber-space.

I don’t think anyone would consider me anti-internet or anti-online. And I am certainly no Luddite. I not only embrace new technologies, I have been involved in some of them.

Nevertheless, my Mum has a particularly valid point when she sighs and compares “the good old days” with this uncertain journey we call Progress.

Learning New Things

I don’t think I can claim that I learn “something new” very often.

Usually (or so it seems), any given day or event falls simply into the category of confirming what I already knew. A repeat performance. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. There’s a lot of power in repetition. If it was sport or playing guitar, it would be considered practice. And that is certainly positive.

Yesterday though, I added a new knowledge. Loosely speaking, it was the technique of “panel-beating” (specifically, it was straightening a bent metal tube from my professional-grade Millar tripod). My Dad (who BTW is 96), is a “mechanical-advantage genius”. Yesterday he taught me… (again)… that most things are possible if you only know how.

He is a genuine Mr Fix It.

Again?... Dad has been repeating this to me since I was a kid. “If you have the right tool, most things are possible, if you only know how.”

Dad doesn’t always have the right tool. Enter the concept “improvisation”. Or to use that expression “improvisation is the mother of all invention”.

And if improvising, with the handle of a screw-driver, a triangular wedge, a hacksaw blade, a rasped washer, a cut-off piece of water pipe and some looped wire doesn’t work? Dad makes a tool that does. (I did say that he was a “mechanical-advantage genius” didn’t I?)

Working with my Mr Fix It Dad isn’t easy… (that’s a Father-Son thing), but… (without going into the Father-Son Thing that says I will forever remain 14 years old in his estimation of my abilities, especially highlighted by my Mum coming up to us working together with a bemused expression to ask, “Are you two still talking to each other?”)… I have to recognize that over the years, I have benefitted by learning how to use all manner of tools, and have learned the lesson of seeing a problem as fixable.

With my status of being the eternally youthful 14yo apprentice accepted, (all sons and daughters may nod their heads in agreement in that regard), the ability of hammering or using a screwdriver in either left or right hand is one such bonus. It’s brilliant to know that I can take a leaking tap/faucet and fix it.

In response to countless times I have been asked why my Dad and I tackle a job ourselves (even at age 96), rather than calling in the appropriate plumber/carpenter/builder/etc? The answer: I have been trying to change/influence my father for years…

In conclusion: Dad told me this story about a genius panel-beater that he knew. It was during WW2 and a front fender/wing for a Rolls Royce needed to be repaired. Spare parts during WW2 didn’t exist, so the genius panel beater took a raw piece of flat sheet metal and with nothing more than a hammer and anvil, created a perfectly shaped replacement part!

The quiet cup of tea

This cup of tea was significant for me. Of course I do not think that this ‘significance’ went the other way. I would have been a dim recollection in Audrey Hepburn’s memory.

It was 1992, It was at the Munich Film Festival. Audrey Hepburn had attended to promote her Good Will Ambassadorship for UNICEF. She was inspiring, suffering from cancer and clearly frail.

I was working as a news cameraman. The various TV crews had each booked an interview. We were last. (we were always last in the pecking order.)

After the many interviews, she was visibly tired. Depleted. She was advised to rest and offered a cup of tea. She then invited me to join her. That in itself was an awkward decision, because I felt like I was taking advantage of her graciousness. She insisted with these remarkable words, “You must always appreciate the moment. Please join me.”

With the utmost honesty, those 10 minutes were significant for that alone. How many times per day do I forget that?

She asked about me, my family.
At the time, my son Lukas wasn’t yet two years old, so I beamed joyful anecdotes of this 'new being that had changed my life'. I rattled on about Fatherhood & Responsibility, and his infectious giggle.


Of course I could sense her frustration that her time was nearly gone, that her body had been sapped of vigor, and considering that… and because of that… and in spite of that… maybe… maybe I sensed that this moment… this moment in time that she was choosing to spend with me… was a human moment. Maybe I sensed the importance and significance of that?

10 minutes later, I was back in the bustling crowd.