Any questions I had about how my dad would accept new technology were answered shortly after I plugged in his new computer (his first) about five years ago.
Though he had decided months earlier he wanted to be part of the Internet, staying abreast of the weather reports without having to wait 10 minutes for the next radio report, he waited until I visited so someone of some knowledge could help him with the purchase and setup.
Midway through the lesson, I introduced him to the mouse, telling him how it controlled the curson. Peering over his shoulder at the screen, I told him to move the mouse and note how it corresponded to the cursor. Only the cursor wasn’t moving. I told him to move the mouse. “I am,” he said. I looked to my right and saw him waving it in the air like a wand.
OK, this was going to take a while.
So as my son loved the idea of packing our Nintendo Wii for the annual trip to see his grandparents, I wasn’t so sure how well it would go over. My mom wants nothing to do with technology, clinging to her corded phone (no answering machine), her pen and notecards, her VCR (trusting its operation to my dad).
My dad is a little more open, as noted by his ability to tape various TV programs. But his last encounter with video games was the Atari 2600 we played in my teen years. One joystick, one button, a stick figure or two on the screen – as far as he knew, videogames hadn’t changed much over the years. Putting an Xbox 360 controller in his hand would have been akin to putting him behind the wheel of a 747 and pointing toward the runway.
But with the Wii’s simple remote, hell, he just might find something to like.
Not long after our arrival, my son plugged the Wii into their 14-year-old RCA 27-inch TV and its cutting-edge (at the time) video input. (In fact, the TV was almost 14 years old on the nose, as my mom had not only retained the receipt, but filed it in such a way as to be able to retrieve it in just a few minutes, proof that life in analog still works).
We fired up the tennis game and invited my parents to watch. Their innate sense of politeness overcame their complete disinterest in video games. As my son and I swatted the ball back and forth, dad showed his first sign that maybe, just maybe, he was ready to join the 21st century.
“So you just swing the paddle?” he asked. “And the game can see you? How does that work?”
I had no idea the inner workings of the Wii, beyond the sensor bar placed on the TV. So in accordance with family tradition, I winged it.
“That bar on top of the TV sends out these nano pulses, kind of like radar but way more sophisticated,” I said. “The beams bounce off of us and the game ‘reads’ us, and all our movements are transferred to the screen in a fraction of a second.”
“Just because I still have dialup doesn’t mean I’m stupid,” said dad, in the fine family tradition of knowing bullshit when he hears it.
“I have no idea how it works. Only that it does.”
After a few games, I offer him the remote. “Want to try?”
“Yes.” I was a little surprised how eager this 80-year-old man, who grew up in a time when interactive entertainment was turning the knob on the Philco radio, was ready to try something completely different.
One small step for a dad, one giant leap for geriatric kind.
I should have known. After all, his first instinct with the mouse was to wave it in the air. The Wii’s remote almost came naturally to him.
But not naturally enough. After whiffing at the tennis ball four straight times, thus losing the set in record time, he wasn’t quite fast enough to keep up with the Wii’s nano pulses (or whatever they are).
Time to slow it down.
“You want to try bowling?” I said.
“Yes.”
It seemed to be a much better fit. Bowling required the same motion was in real-world bowling, only with a 6-ounce remote instead of a 16-pound ball. Hell, someone should open a Wii bowling center near retirement homes everywhere. And serve beer. Call it Wii Bowl and Drink. Call me for licensing.
As dad prepared to launch his first ball, the he encountered the first barrier: buttons. The game required twice as many buttons at the Atari, a leap in the learning curve.
Dad is waving the remote like a pendulum, but his character remains motionless.
“How come nothing is happening?” he said. “Your little game broke.”
“No, here, to start you have to press the A button,” I said. “This big one top.”
“What one?”
“Here, let go and I’ll show you. This one. The big one with an A on it.”
“Ah, I just press that and I’m set?”
“That’s it.”
“Great, let’s go,” he said, taking the remote.
His bowler now stood ready to go. Dad swung his remote. His bowler stayed still.
“Jesus, now what?”
“You, uh, have to press the B button.”
“Another button? I didn’t have to press all these buttons when I played tennis. You didn’t tell me about all the buttons.”
“It’s easy, see, the B button is on the back, see, it’s like a trigger. Press it and hold it, then swing your arm like you’re bowling. All there is too it.”
Dad assumed the bowling stance and pressed B, sending his bowler into motion. He swing his arm down and back up, and the Wii responded with a blip and a message, the bowler frozen in place.
“Dad, to let go of the ball you have to release the B button,” I said.
“Criminy, what’s with all the button stuff? There are no buttons in bowling.”
“No, there are very heavy balls so this is a lot easier. You just have to time it. Press the B button, swing your arm and then release B at the point you want to let go of the ball. It just takes some adjustment but once you get used to it, it’s real easy.”
Once again he assumed the stance and pressed B. His bowler swung his arm back and released the ball, sending it into the virtual crowd behind him, who react with a startled “Oh!”
“That was real good, you just released it too early,” I said, remembering how patient dad was with me when I was learning how to drive, a potentially lethal activity given my lack of skill. So I could do this. “You just want to let go of B just as your bowler swings forward.”
He tried again and again. More often than not, he hurled the ball with a high arc, the kind that would have dented the lane and resulted in his expulsion had this been a real alley.
But by the seventh frame he had caught on, scoring his first spare.
“OK,” he said. “Now we’re cooking.”
Not quite. He failed to break 100 but, refusing to quit after humiliation, dad challenged his grandson to another game.
And in the great family tradition of grossly overestimating new skills, he added, “This time I’m going to kick your little butt.”
And he did just that, scoring a 134-126 victory. He eventually played golf and baseball several times during our weeklong visit, and I silently thanked Nintendo for giving my dad a small taste of this century. No, it didn’t spur him to ditch his dialup Internet connection for broadband (“I don’t need to get the weather any faster than I do now”), but it’s a welcome step.
And you have to love a device that not only offers an equal playing field for an 80-year-old grandfather and his 12-year-old grandson, but lets the grandson see his granddad in a different light.
“He was really getting into it,” my son said later. “That was cool. Maybe we should get him a Wii for Christmas or something.”
Sure, but dad would wait six months for us to visit and hook it up. Some things never change.
