777: Name. Age. Detail.
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Denise Clark is a retired school teacher who still works as a substitute. When COVID hit and her high school switched to remote learning, it was hard for her for all the normal reasons, but also, like lots of older people, she wasn't so great on computers. Ditto for her friend Pearl, who was another substitute at that school, who Denise would do crossword puzzles with in the faculty lounge. Pearl also nuts so great on the computers. Pearl was a decade older than Denise in her mid-70s. She always told me, "Can you help me?" She thought, "I was good at it." So she always wanted me to help. I really wasn't the best person. It took a while for me to learn and to tell you the truth. You know, you'd think of your 75 and your job completely changes. You might call it quits, but Pearl was adamant. She was going to learn to work on the computer. When you got stuck, she wasn't shy to call and help from the IT guy, or the assistant principal, or really whoever she could find. I had to tip my head to her if I had one, because she would keep trying. That's the thing I like about her. She'd ask questions. She was doing better than some of us. And Pearl, she kept up with it. You know, she didn't know something. She had some difficulties. What kind of difficulties was she having? Well, we all had difficulties. You know, we had to get in. Some kind of computers might even go off. But this was new to Zoom stashed, but you had to learn it. Pearl did learn it. Pearl's daughter Pam, in fact, told me that she watched, fascinated that her 70-something-year-old mom was on the computer all the time. Over a year before that, she bought Pearl laptop that had mostly gone unused. But now, Pearl was running a classroom on Zoom, taking attendance, telling kids to get on camera and participate. I always tell her how proud I was of her for that. And after that achievement, okay, who would have guessed that this was going to happen? Pearl started using her computer and her phone when she was not working. And ways that her daughter had never imagined were possible. My mom never sent me an email, but she got on Facebook. Oh, my goodness. Oh, really? She started communicating through Facebook all the time. So there was some day where, like, you're on Facebook, and then suddenly your mom pops up and we're just like, what's happening? Oh, yeah.
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