Admiration required no technology

Add this to the list of complications of aging: Sometimes you can’t get a bite to eat because your phone is too old.

We were on the Indiana University campus at Bloomington. We’d gone down for a weekend visit, primarily to see Bea, our newest grandchild.

Sure, her parents — Ben and Sally — would be on hand. But the star performer was Bea.

From a COVID-19 perspective, everything seemed to be safe.

Ben works from home as a social studies teacher. Sally works from home as an attorney for IU. Bea attends a strictly monitored day care program by the school district.

Both Bea and her dad had been tested for virus contacts within the past week and had tested negative.

So, on that front, all was good.

What I had not counted on was our aging cellphones.

Because both Sally and Ben were busy working (from home) Friday, we decided to make a visit to the Eskinazi Art Museum on the IU campus.

The museum had undergone a renovation, but its grand re-opening had been squashed by COVID-19.

A new re-opening — with lots of safety guidelines — had happened that Thursday. We figured that Friday afternoon was a good time to enjoy the museum in advance of our family get together.

Few were visiting when we arrived about 1:30 p.m., so we had the place — and its wonderful collection — pretty much to ourselves.

The re-opening was still a little disorganized. We asked for a map that would help guide us through the museum’s collection, but there wasn’t one to be found.

Ultimately, it didn’t matter.

The museum is a teaching facility, so we found ourselves wandering through a collection that started with a tiny Jewish wedding ring all the way through Impressionist masterpieces.

I found myself both delighted and stunned by T.C. Steele’s “The Boatman,” a masterpiece if there ever was one.

But we were getting hungry. Connie’s homemade blueberry muffins were not getting us through.

That’s when I suddenly felt old.

Staff was on hand at the museum’s café. Food was available.

But it was a little tricky getting to it.

A little sign spelled out the steps we were supposed to take.

(Talking to the young man 12 feet away was not one of the steps.)

First, the sign said, we should contact Grubhub via the internet.

That required, first, connecting with the museum’s Wi-Fi.

We did that, but then things started to go wrong.

My phone — which, admittedly, dates from the early Pleistocene Era — said that I needed to download the Grubhub app.

Then it told me that in order to download the Grubhub app, I would need to download a new system software for my phone.

Trouble is, I knew that wouldn’t work.

An attempt to upgrade our phones had run into the same problem: The phones are too old. I suppose we are too old as well.

No phone. No app. No food.

Surprised? Not really.

That’s the way it goes as those of us who are relics of the 20th century venture out into this brave new world.

But in this case, the museum more than made up for it.

I could stand in front of Steele’s “The Boatman” for hours, phone or no phone.