Lately I’ve been looking for old fashioned, low tech solutions to a modern day problem. Specifically, how to follow the Baltimore Orioles in the digital age without digital resources. For as long as I can remember, the games have been televised on a local tv station for all to enjoy. But this year, games can only be watched on the regional cable sports network…which shall not be named and which is not a channel available on any of my streaming devices.
I ask you…what’s a girl to do?
If you’re me, you start by looking on the internet for a broadcast stream of the game. Nope. The local radio affiliates do not stream their game time coverage. So while I could sit in my car and listen to the game, if I use the tablet in my kitchen to pull up the radio stations’ web sites and try to Listen Live….no luck. I think maybe hi tech isn’t always the answer.
Especially for my 95 year old grandmother.
The things that she still enjoys in her assisted living community are few and far between…hot coffee….decaf….black, getting her hair done, and watching baseball games. She’s about as low tech as it gets so when the games went off of the local tv station, she was left with even fewer options than I was. Giving her new technology is a recipe for frustration (hers and mine), not to mention a waste of money. So in my quest to find a solution for me, I also was looking for one that could work for her.
Enter some quintessential old school technology…the radio. And let me tell you, those things are harder to find than I think they should be in 2018. I went down a few Etsy and Ebay rabbit holes initially trying to find an old working radio that looked like the green Zenith my grandparents used to have in their kitchen. In my search, I ended up with three solutions.
One modern FM radio capable of receiving HD stations. That one lives at my house for rooftop game enjoyment.
One 1970’s Zenith. Silver and beige. She’s a beauty. And she is what I listen to in bed on game nights.
And one brand new pocket radio….you might know it better as a transistor radio. For my grandmother. The cashier at Target was almost too young to know what it was. Which officially made me feel like an oldster.
I suppose the moral of this story is that The Google and Alexa don’t have all the answers all the time. Sometimes you have to ask What Would An Oldster Do and look for the lowest tech option available.
Old Fashioned Lemonade
Adapted from The Lemonade Cookbook by Alan Jackson and Joann Cianciulli
BAH Note: Lemon juice + sugar + water is nearly as low tech as beverages get. The original recipe calls for three lemons roughly chopped to go into your blender with the lemon juice and sugar. I tried it. I did NOT enjoy it. I’ve adjusted that ingredient below according to my taste and feel like it’s a pretty reasonable place to start. I also want to try my hand at blizting granulated sugar in my food processor to mimic “caster” sugar. That stuff’s hella pricey to keep putting in my cart at the grocery store for as much of this as we drink at our house….nothing’s better on an early summer day than sitting on the roof listening to the baseball game while sipping on a cold, old fashioned lemonade…easy, peasy, lemon squeezy. Yes, I am an oldster….see reference above.
- 1/2 lemon, roughly chopped
- 2 cups caster sugar (don’t confuse this with superfine powdered sugar)
- 2 cups freshly squeezed lemon juice (approximately 10ish lemons)
- 5 cups water
Combine the chopped lemon, lemon juice, and caster sugar in a blender and run it at medium/high until nicely blended.
Strain out any remaining solids through a fine mesh strainer.
Combine the strained juice and water in a pitcher, stir to combine, and enjoy.
Bon Appetit Hon 