A Tale of Two Phones

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If you are a Baby Boomer, you will probably be able to relate to this post.  If not, maybe it will leave you just a little bit curious…

I miss rotary phones

the kind where you put your finger in the hole of the dial

rotating it clockwise until it stopped

then releasing it to get a satisfying

click, click, click as it unwound

taking up to several seconds per number

 

The telephone rang

when someone wanted to talk to you

As kids, we would all run to its ring

eager to be the one to pick up the receiver

with a breathless “Hello?”

(Double excitement for long distance)

 

Now people don’t want to talk so much on the phone

They prefer to text and share- everything

iphone-2464968_1920My phone now is a small rectangle that glows with a touch screen

It is called “smart” maybe for its ability

to distract and beg for your attention

 worse than my Golden Retriever

 

My rotary phone just sat there and left me alone

(unless someone wanted to talk to me)

So I gave my smartphone a lobotomy

tired of the intrusion into my life

Bye bye Facebook, bye Instagram, bye this, bye that….

 

Now it’s pretty much a phone- kinda smart

but not too smart

I still miss rotary phones

and their satisfying click, click, click

But they are gone now

like the many other dinosaurs of my life

lost in time

But not from my memory

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On The Way

It was the late 1950s and America was on the road.  My family was one of them.  Some of my fondest memories were from these times and our many camping trips to Yosemite National Park & beyond. This one’s for you, Dad…..

“Are we almost there yet?”1309f33c20927d222859100d29bb9db5

I whined to my parents as we motored down seemingly endless highways

punctuated with Burma-Shave signs,jack44

Jumbo Orange stands and other odd roadside attractions.

We traveled to the pace of a ’56 Chevy Station wagon

two-toned Red & White

unbuckled with my older brother in the way back
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windows rolled down

stifling heat & wind flapping about our ears

while we sang songs in harmony

& read piles of comic books

rejoicing in those stops

with dripping ice cream cones

32bjackalope2briding2bjack2bpc2b5& Jackalope postcards

on the way to that perfect camp spot under shady pine trees.

We slept under the stars on army cots

tucked in thick sleeping bags lined with red flannel plaid

waking to the “shhhhhh” sound of the Coleman stove.

We waded in creeks turning over rocks exposing odd bugs yosemite-post-card

& released crude sailboats made of wood scraps &  white rag sails

into the current past our tin can waterwheels.

It was a wild wonderland

for a young girl with legs as spindly as a colt’s.

Now looking back to those years from the arc of adulthood

“Are we almost there yet?”

We were there

We were there all the time.

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