I'm Major Jackson, and this is the slowdown.

When my grandfather lost the second love of his life, I worried he would suffer acute loneliness.

My grandmother and he enjoyed 38 years together before she succumbed to cancer.

He soon after met Miss Rose.

Though they never married, they were the focus of each other's attention for 20 years. They loved watching Philadelphia sports teams, sharing a bowl of vanilla ice cream, only on Sundays, and recalling the great Motown-Douac groups of the 60s.

She took ill, and he was again, suddenly, without a partner.

At nearly 90 years old, he refused an elder care home.

A nearby aunt paid his bills and shopped for him, but she had her own family to care for.

Shortly after Miss Rose's funeral, I visited him, told him I had a surprise. I hooked up an old computer and said, if you ever need to talk, all you have to do is hit this button.

This was in the early days of Skype. We had just begun to chat to each other in real time

using our computers. I gave him further instructions, then dialed my wife and children in

Burlington, Vermont.

When their faces showed on the screen, he leaned back. He grimaced, then walked away. He said,

take it with you. I was surprised by his reaction. He wanted nothing to do with this technology.

He sat in his lounge chair and clicked the TV remote. ESPN commentators counted down baseball highlights that loudly filled the

room. Born at the end of the First World War, it occurred to me how much my grandfather took in the

world's advances, everything from commercial air flights to space travel, to color television,

to personal courtless phones that fit in your pocket.

Now this.

Talking to his family through a small TV-like screen.

It was just too much for his spirit.

Where did all of this begin?

...