Pushing the Buttons, by Lewis Thompson

When I took Drivers' Ed back in 1960, we did our on-the-road learning in a 1957 Mercury Monterey with push-button automatic transmission controls mounted to the left of the steering column on the lower instrument panel.  (Most people over 60, like me, associate push-button shifting with Chrysler Corporation vehicles.)  Mercury went back to column-mounted shifting a year or two later.  I assume that a few too many of their customers were downshifting or upshifting when they meant to change the radio station from WLS in Chicago to KOMA in Oklahoma City.

On some very recent car models, pushing a button is how you start the motor, either gasoline or electric.  Many of us will remember when you would push a button to lock the car doors.  Later models often lock the doors for you when the vehicle reaches a certain speed.  One operation that hasn't changed much is the need to push a button to release the lap/shoulder belt.  Many telephones still require the manual dexterity to push a button to dial or take a call but they are rapidly being phased out by phones that require only a soft, tactile touch to a screen.

I can remember push-button operated door bells, light switches, tape recorders, adding machines, typewriters, office phones, air conditioners, electric mixers, car radios, switch blade knives, and pagers.  Some household items still use pushbuttons today.  For example, pop machines, cell phones, elevators, pedestrian crossing signals, car key fobs, and apartment lobby call boxes.  Almost everything else has converted to a modus operandi that does not involve buttons. 

Soon people will be letting their fingernails grow so long that they can no longer push a button without breaking a nail.  Broken nails used to be a problem for women who wore nylon stockings.  However, since woman don't wear nylon stockings anymore--they went out of style concurrently with buttons--broken nails are no longer an issue unless they make it hard to make the desired selection on a touch screen or micro-switch.  I don't know if this is a problem since I still have many possessions with a button.  Therefore, pushing buttons is a push-over for me.

© 23 Jun 2014  

About the Author  

 I came to the beautiful state of Colorado out of my native Kansas by way of Michigan, the state where I married and had two children while working as an engineer for the Ford Motor Company. I was married to a wonderful woman for 26 happy years and suddenly realized that life was passing me by. I figured that I should make a change, as our offspring were basically on their own and I wasn't getting any younger. Luckily, a very attractive and personable man just happened to be crossing my path at that time, so the change-over was both fortuitous and smooth.

Soon after, I retired and we moved to Denver, my husband's home town. He passed away after 13 blissful years together in October of 2012. I am left to find a new path to fulfillment. One possibility is through writing. Thank goodness, the SAGE Creative Writing Group was there to light the way.