I have just read Greg Kesich’s column, (“After a decade, the jury’s still out on school laptops,” April 21).

The subject of providing free computers to seventh- and eighth-graders in Maine schools was brought to my attention a few weeks ago by a sudden request to be interviewed by a team of eighth-graders from King Middle School in Portland as they were assembled in the living room at Seventy Five State Street, where I now live.

They wanted my views on civil rights. I agreed to come up to fill in for another resident who could not make the meeting.

Meeting these kids and being asked questions about a subject with only a few memories, led me into my WWII service, which then became their focus for the stories they had been told to write.

Their first question to me was, “Did I mind being taped for this meeting?”– indicating the open laptops nearby, which I was told could do this.

I replied “Of course not” — I was impressed that they wanted to show off how this interview would be “professional.”

Kesich writes that the final analysis on the free laptop distribution to middle school students in the state is still being evaluated.

As a retired engineer almost 95 years old, having this educational tool available for the interview was another very positive comparison I can make to my own eighth-grade education, back in a small town in Idaho, circa 1929.

Such progress is amazing.