I never learned how to operate a VCR, let alone a DVD player.

I never owned an eight-track, let alone a Walkman or an iPod.

I never use my ATM card, assuming I actually have one.

The list goes on and on and on. …

I’ve never shopped or banked on-line or posted pictures from my cell phone.

I haven’t signed up for Twitter or Pinterest or Instagram. Whatever they are.

I don’t know how to Tivo and don’t really care to learn.

Oh, I do own a laptop and I, obviously, have this blog and own a cell phone and I’m on Facebook but in most regards compared to most people I’m a hopeless Luddite.

There, I’ve said it.

Now, some of you may be wondering, what is a Luddite?

The Luddites were, according to my friends at Wikipedia, 19th century British textile workers who rebelled against new technologies that threatened their jobs. They broke some of the new machines and it took government action to quell the uprising.

The modern term has evolved to mean, as I understand it, those opposed to new technologies or slow to adopt them.

The slow part definitely applies to me. Always has.

When cell phones started becoming commonplace in, I guess, the 1990s, I scoffed at them and wondered why anybody would want such a thing and be constantly tethered to the rest of the world.

Now, I have one and never rarely leave home without it. I even take it with me when I ride my bicycle, keeping it tucked into a little pouch attached to the frame.

In most ways, though, I remain a staunch and proud Luddite, howling into the winds of change.

I see little yellow, smiling faces on Facebook comments and I wonder how folks do that. I don’t wonder deeply enough to find out how but I am mildly curious.

I’m old enough to recall the first video games being on the market. The first was, I think, Pong, or something like that. I didn’t care for the first primitive video games and have no use for the latest versions of the infernal things.

I don’t care for Facebook games, either. And I don’t know how to access Facebook on my cell phone and see no need to do that. I don’t take photos with my phone and even if I had a photo on my phone I don’t know how to get it from there to Facebook.

Furthermore, I don’t really care to know.

I don’t really text. Oh, I’ll respond to text messages but only if I feel the question texted me requires an immediate response.

This will come as no surprise: I don’t own a Kindle and despite being an avid reader I have no intention of purchasing any kind of electronic reading gizmo.

Yes, in a sense, I’m a toothless old coot, sitting in my metaphorical rocking chair on the front porch, railing against change, barking at kids and hankering for a return to simpler times. By, gum.

“Get off my lawn!”

“Sonny, you and the other whippersnappers, go do your texting someplace else.”

“Why, when I was your age we had to use rotary phones and had only three channels on our black-and-white set.”

All these people with all their gizmos and gadgets and what do they have to show for it? Are they interesting? Do they know anything? Do they do more than post photos of cats and engage in gossip about co-workers and celebrities?

Have they read “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” or “The Grapes of Wrath?”

Could they name one of the Marx Brothers?

Could they pick Teddy Roosevelt out of a photo lineup with the Three Stooges?

I don’t need all those gizmos and gadgets and programs. Thank you very much.

I have all I need. I own a cell phone to make and receive calls. I have a laptop for my work. I’m on Facebook, which provides some pleasant diversions when my news feed isn’t overwhelmed with kitten pictures or those memes (is that the right word?) sporting pretentious aphorisms posing as wisdom and all those breathless lunch updates.

I’ve got books. There are always books.

I stopped in “Back in the Day Books” in Dunedin yesterday and browsed through hundreds of books, intrigued by so many. I bought an old paperback for $2 – “Nicholas and Alexandra,” a 1967 novel about the last Russian czar and his family, the Romanovs. The author was Robert K. Massie.

Right next to me at the moment is “American Mirror, The Life and Art of Norman Rockwell,” a first-rate biography of Rockwell by Deborah Solomon.

I’m more interested in Rockwell and his art than I am in learning how use an ATM card or a DVD player or even a VCR.

Rockwell and the Romanovs to me are more interesting than another gizmo or gadget or cat photo.

To learn about Rockwell or the Romanovs I don’t need electricity or an instruction manual.

After this blog I’ll walk a few steps with the Rockwell book and sit in a big reclining chair here at my mom and sister’s house in Dunedin.

I’ll push back in the chair, read that book, one with ink on paper, the kind Norman Rockwell himself would have read.