On 12/9/2011 5:24 PM, Tommy Joe wrote:
>
> Everything changes, ultimately for the good. That is my belief.
> But I agree with you and want to add something I think is equally
> funny. I know a guy in town who told me last week that he met a young
> guy in his late teens or early 20s who did not know how to read a
> clock. He was so used to everything being digital that he didn't know
> where the 9 or 6 went on a regular round clock. I found it hard to
> believe, but if you think about it it's not so hard to believe,
> because at one time, before the round clock took over, we had the sun
> dial. How many people today can read one of those? Not me. So
> everything changes and always has. But that was a real tickler when
> my buddy told me that one, and he wasn't making it up.
>
> TJ

I was probably a little retarded as a child so my dad had to set me down
holding an alarm clock to teach me how to read one. It's pretty involved
it you ask me. You have to be able to count in sets of five and divide
by 12 and 2 and 4. You have to learn idioms like half past and a quarter
to. You have to learn that 2/5ths between 9 and 10 is 47 minutes. I
never found the entire idea of reading a clock face to be a simple task.
I can certainly believe that for a lot of kids, reading a clock face
will be a daunting task.