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COMMUNITY NEWS | FOUR SEASONS BREEZE | FEBRUARY 2015 7 GPS once did in San Diego. I was in unfamiliar territory and the GPS's dulcet voice purred instructions: "In point two miles turn left on Elm Avenue, then turn right;" "In point four miles take ramp on right to Elmont Parkway." This continued through four or five turns until I was back turning left on Elm Avenue a second and then a third time. The accursed thing had me in a loop, not on my way back to my motel. I gave up and used my sense of direction and street signs to get back a lot later than I planned. I have an electric blanket instead of a quilt, an electric fry pan instead of a skillet on the stove, a Mixmaster and Osterizer instead of a bowl and a whisk, and three transponders in my car to pay tolls on the highway, open the gate to Four Seasons and my garage door. I have electric hearing aids instead of an ear trumpet, and an electric iPad and laptop computer that have displaced my address book, appointment calendar, typewriter, dictionary, books with proper pages and covers, encyclopedia, Scrabble board and God knows what else. And these things beep incessantly. My hearing aids beep when they are turned on, when the battery gets low, when they connect with each other and when they connect with the TV. The microwave beeps when I set the timer and when it's done cooking. My cell phone beeps when it gets a text message and so does the iPad. The refrigerator beeps when its door is ajar. Try telling all those beeps apart. I spent most of a recent morning changing hearing aid batteries, checking the refrigerator door, the microwave and my iPad before I discovered I had a text on my cell. To cut the confusion, somebody should invent a hearing aid that honks or rings instead of beeps. When I go to the store, the front door senses my approach and opens automatically. The items I buy are electronically scanned and the bill added up electronically, the tax is electrically computed and assessed, and I pay the bill by running my credit card through an electric scanner which sends off an electric impulse to some distant computer that checks my credit rating, the balance left on the card and either approves or disapproves the transaction, all electronically — no human involved. Whatever happened to price tags, paper money, cash registers and looking up the tax from a chart taped to the register? If all the lights go out and the batteries run down I won't be able to get in the store, much less buy anything or pay the bill. I won't be able to hear or get into my car — much less start it or adjust the seats. But then the car will be useless because I won't be able to get the garage door open, get through the Four Seasons Gate or pay on the toll road — and the rear window will be all fogged up. My house will be dark at night, the furnace and air conditioning won't work and neither will the television (which might be all right — except during football and baseball seasons). I'll have to stir the mashed potatoes by hand, cook on the gas stove, dine by candle light, take cold showers, do the laundry in the sink and put a clothesline in the back yard (what will the HOA say about that?). I'll have to check spelling in the dictionary, look up facts in the World Almanac, find businesses in the Yellow Pages and read an actual newspaper (an improvement over tweets and blogs). I might actually get a real letter instead of a torrent of emails — many of them ads, scams, spams, self promotions and outright lies. In college I took a physics course with a unit on electricity. The professor claimed he explained electrical theory, but I never got it. I could understand things like mass, volume, velocity and heat transfer, but not electricity. Except for the occasional lightning bolt it was unseen, coursed through solid objects and moved things — sort of like a poltergeist, which the dictionary (you caught me — I still use one) calls "a mischievous spirit." Spirits haunt things and electricity certainly haunts our world — it is everywhere, runs damn near everything, has a mind of its own and we are entirely too dependent on it I think it would be good to reduce that dependence. I wonder if I can get a crank for my car, find a deal on second-hand door knockers and hire a guy to deliver block ice to my house. The annual district delegates elections are upon us. Ballots will be mailed to residents later this month and a Meet the Candidates forum will be held in the Lodge at 6 pm on Feb. 12. Most of the candidates were recruited by a nominating committee of residents Don Fant, Louise Lyon and Bev McLaughlin. Others volunteered on their own. The delegates' sole job is to vote for candidates for the HOA Board, much like Electoral College members in U.S. Presidential elections — with one important difference. If a delegate's district fails to have a quorum of its homeowners vote in the HOA election, the delegate casts all the districts votes as he or she see fit. Because of this, the position is one of great importance and power. Homeowners should be sure to vote so responsible delegates are elected. ~ Leighton McLaughlin Continued from previous page District Delegates Election Soon; Meet the Candidates on Feb. 12

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