Web Browsing

Steve had some idea how the internet worked because he'd been watching Leslie look things up for days now.

They cleared the table and Steve opened the laptop, pushed the power button and waited for the machine to start. He put a finger delicately on the touchpad and swirled it around, getting a feel for using the cursor. He brought it down to point at the browser icon.

"This one, right?"

"That's correct. Press firmly on the track pad to click on the icon," Leslie said.

Steve pressed firmly, too firmly. Instead of the application launching, a menu opened. Steve looked alarmed.

"No, that's OK. Just slide the cursor off to the side and let go," Leslie coached. When the menu disappeared, Leslie told him to try again. "Just click on the icon, don't hold the button down."

Steve tried again and — success! — the browser launched, going to a collection of icons that Steve had seen many times while Leslie was driving. He was much amused by the Google doodle, honoring an artist he'd never heard of. He clicked on the doodle to find out more and got lost in the information — this artist, that art movement, this related artist.

Smiling, Leslie let him poke around for a bit before calling him to order.

"Sorry," he said sheepishly.

"It happens to everyone," Leslie said. "It's easy to end up following links down the rabbit hole."

"I get that reference," Steve said proudly. "But what does it mean here?"

Leslie chuckled. "You can start out looking for one topic and end up wandering the internet for hours. All of a sudden it's midnight and you never did find the reference you wanted for your term paper, although you did see a neat video of surfing dogs."

Steve typed in "surfing dogs" and a window came up. At the top was a picture of a dog on a surfboard with an arrow in the middle pointing to the right.

"That means 'play,' doesn't it?" It was the same symbol from the remote control. He clicked on it and watched a "YouTube" video of a dog surfing contest at Huntington Dog Beach.

"Now find Dr. King's 'I Have a Dream' speech," Leslie said.

Steve began typing and only typed "King I h" before a variety of options presented themselves, including a video, a speech analysis and a transcript. He selected the video option and still found several choices. Leslie pointed out the various websites. YouTube and were among the choices.

"YouTube is just videos. might have more background in addition to the video," Leslie said. "I like YouTube for fun videos like the surfing dogs and for how-to videos."

She typed "how to tie a tie." Selections included diagrams and YouTube videos. "Seeing it in action is easier for me to understand," Leslie said.

Steve nodded and filed the "How-to" information in his mind. He would need a lot of "how-to" help. The internet was so helpful.

"Can I go back to Dr. King?" he asked.

"Click the back arrow, there." She pointed.

Steve watched the speech, then found his way to a history site. He learned about Selma and saw a list of related topics.

"If a name is in color, it's a link you can click on," Leslie said.

Steve saw a familiar name. The cursor hovered for a moment above "Gabe Jones" name, but eventually he passed it by. He wasn't ready.

"Punching bags, right?" That was the other assignment Leslie had given him.

Even though he mistyped his question, the browser knew what he wanted.

"It's really smart," he said, impressed.

"It's very handy if you're not sure how to spell something," Leslie agreed.

Steve read about the construction process. Goatskin leather, interesting. But it wasn't that interesting.

"What next?" he asked.

Leslie pondered the decades Steve had missed. "Look for 'The British Invasion,'" she suggested.

"Sounds like Normandy," Steve said, teasing, but a little sad, too.

"No, we're not looking up war stories today," Leslie said firmly. "I'm not ready."

Steve typed in the search. "Oh, music!" The Wikipedia quote was "The British Invasion this time goes by the name Beatlemania." Steve followed links for "Beatlemania" and watched a video of the Beatles singing "I Wanna Hold Your Hand."

"What do you think?" Leslie asked.

"It ain't Big Band," Steve judged.

Leslie laughed. "This was my generation's music. We're called the Baby Boomers, all the kids born after the servicemen came home from the war. Some people in your generation considered the music scandalous, but they had plenty of choice of other music. The 1960s was an amazing time for music. Rock was getting started, but you still had crooners like Sinatra. Rhythm and blues, folk music." Leslie shook her head. "There was something for everyone. Well, still is, really."

Leslie played a few samples for Steve: "Puff the Magic Dragon" by Peter, Paul and Mary. "One of my childhood favorites. Some people claim it's about drugs, but I thought it was a song about a boy growing up and leaving his childhood toys behind." "A Taste of Honey" by Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass. "This was my Dad's favorite," Leslie said.

Then she pulled up "My Kind of Town" by Frank Sinatra.

"I remember him," Steve said. "We met when I was on tour. Young skinny guy. Nice fella, even if he was from Jersey."

"His career had its ups and downs. His singing career was revived by a successful movie career," Leslie said. "He's considered one of the greatest singers of the 20th century, that skinny kid from Jersey."

"Good for him," Steve said. "What's my next assignment?"

"May the Force Be With You," Leslie said.

That led Steve to video clips of space ships and lightsaber fights.

"Wow!" The special effects were so far beyond Flash Gordon serials where model spaceships hung from wires and had sparklers sparking out the back for propulsion.

"Don't read too much about 'Star Wars,'" Leslie warned. "You don't want to spoil the plot."

"Can we watch it?" Steve asked, making a note in his notebook. "This looks like something Bucky would have liked," he said wistfully.

"I'm always up for watching 'Star Wars'," Leslie said.

"One small step for man," led to a grainy black and white video of a white-clad foot bouncing down on the gritty surface of the moon.

"I watched that live," Leslie said quietly. "I was holding my breath. Live pictures from the moon. It was a tedious show, because they were very careful and progressed very slowly. And yet we were glued to the TV. It was amazing to think it was coming live from the moon!"

"Do we go to the moon all the time now?" Steve asked.

"Not since the end of the Apollo program in the 1970s," Leslie said. "Now NASA is focused on the International Space Station and satellites that are exploring the solar system. We do have robots rolling around on Mars."

Steve's eyes lit up like a kid at Christmas. "Can I see that?"

"Search for it," Leslie ordered with a smile.

Steve typed in "robots on Mars." Leslie thought he might find fiction links, but the Mars rovers were at the top of the list.

Steve poked around and found out the Spirit Rover was stuck in the sand, but Opportunity had been rolling along since 2004. Steve marveled at the new pictures of Endeavor crater on Mars.

"Doesn't look like Burroughs' Mars," Steve commented. He tried to sound offhand, but there was a catch in his voice. Leslie could imagine young Steve and Bucky crowded together reading "A Princess of Mars." She was sure Steve was mentally sharing this modern marvel with Bucky.

To lighten the mood, Leslie found some clips from 1950s comedies, such as "Your Show of Shows" and "I Love Lucy." After she got Steve chuckling again, Leslie considered her day's work was done.

They went to bed and, inspired by the promised helicopter ride, for a change Steve dreamed of flying, not falling. He soared over Brooklyn like a kite, looking down on his mom, and Mrs. Barnes and waving frantically at young Bucky who waved back just as enthusiastically. It was a good dream and Steve hugged it close when he woke up the next morning.

A/N: OK, I'm back. I can't promise regular updates, but look for me on Saturdays and see if I've gotten anything done. I have been writing, but I can't run the two stories I've finished yet. One is near the end of this series. I wanted to get the idea on paper before I forgot. The other is a tag to Infinity War, which I won't run until June. Maybe I can get the helicopter story done by next weekend, but I have several other projects to finish, so maybe not. I'll try.

Happy Cinco de Mayo and Happy Kentucky Derby Day! And Happy Star Wars Day, one day late.