Milton

Born in Brooklyn and raised in the Bronx, Milton, 86, is a lifelong New Yorker who says his life has been transformed by computer technology.

 

"Before this project, I was bored to death," he says. "I was just waiting for my time to finish. Now all of a sudden, I'm wide awake. I'm alive again.

 

"I like to work, I like to talk, but I was alone in this big apartment," Milton says. "The computer stops me sitting at the desk and doing nothing. I talk to people now, and I'm getting more and more involved."

 

Milton spends hours researching various topics he finds interesting and locating old friends—and sometimes old flames—online. Not long ago, he tracked down a woman he hadn't seen since they were children together. He got in touch and they've started making plans to get together for a reunion.

 

The son of Polish immigrant parents, after high school Milton attended vocational school, but his love of people and his gift of gab led him to a career in retail sales and, later, as a buyer for a major department store in New York. Even in retirement, Milton has continued his sales career. He operates a home-based business selling a variety of gift items, and he is already exploring how he can use his new computer to streamline his business.

 

Milton has started using Microsoft HealthVault, a personal health-management platform that offers people a way to manage their health without leaving home, and Heart360.org, the American Heart Association's free online heart health center. Using those two services, Milton can take his blood pressure and upload the data directly from the blood-pressure cuff into his HealthVault account and share the information with his physician. In addition, Skype visits with his Selfhelp social worker have proved to be valuable opportunities for Milton to learn about other resources and services that are available to him.

 

 

Milton now orders groceries online and has them delivered to his apartment, regularly posts video blogs, exchanges email and hosts video chats with friends and former coworkers, and eagerly participates in interactive discussion groups at the Selfhelp Benjamin Rosenthal Senior Center. He also enjoys observing or taking part in senior center classes and activities such as art, tai chi, ping pong and dancing. And he loves watching music videos.

 

When a couple of project representatives stopped by to show Milton how to use the blood pressure cuff and the Microsoft HealthVault system, he was on YouTube listening to Frank Sinatra at The Sands in Las Vegas, circa 1961.

 

Milton can't say enough good things about computer technology and what is has given him through the Virtual Senior Center project.

 

"The personal computer is the most important tool to come out in the last 50 years," he says.