8242-M

It is 5:12, the dogs are outside and so far the neighborhood is still peaceful Although the morning is cool, you can tell by the tempatures we are moving each day closer to spring. Thank goodness.I hate wishing my life away but I am so looking forward to the warmer days. And to be able to walk early mornings again.

My brother and sister, whom I might add are both older than me have talked recently about how the new electroinc age has passed us by. We are in the Electronic age there is no doubt about it, computers , cell phones, IPods. My trouble is I hear of something new and by the time I began to figure it out, something else has come along and the other already is obslete.

I have had a cell phone for years now and a computer. But I do not text. I have sent two texts in the history of having a cell phone. Both to my daughter when she was out of town. I have trouble seeing the keys, cannot make out the screen. So I just use the phone to talk and am quite happy with being able to accomplish that feat.

These kids though, they amaze me. Their fingers flying a hundred miles an hour as they text back and forth. My son will come by to see me. He sits with his phone in his hand, texting someone while we talk. I want to reach over and snatch it out of his hands. "Talk to me," I want to holler But if these would have come along thirty years ago I probably would have had my finger glued to the keys too.

Growing up we didn't even always have a phone in the house. Sometimes we did and after all these years I remeber the one number 8242-M. My daughter bought a really old phone book years ago and the name Munch was listed with that number.WWhen I was small there was a operator who said, "Number please. And you waited until she connected you with your party. I loved that as a kid, talking to a complete stranger. Some souned friendly, some not so much. We also had a party line. Which could make it really hard to get through sometimes. But there is no denying we have come along way baby. I wonder sometimes just how much farther we will go. So many new things have appeared since my Mother died in 1984. Oh how she would have loved the computer. Also the cell phone. She could have been om a family plan with her sisters and talked to them everyday. She would have loved to have been able to do that.

I talk to my sister every morning. It makes her seem closer, as if maybe she is across town and I can see her at anytime. I would almost(I said almost) give up eating to keep our cells phones. Because the miles seem nothing when my phone rings and she is there on the other end saying, "What you doing sissy?". So the electronic age is good it just keeps bettering itself at such a high speed I cannot keep up.

So as time passes with it comes change. Some for the better, some I sometimes think not so much better. It wasn't so bad having a person ask you nicely your number. We are spolied to the fact you can leave home and not miss a phone call, because you take the phone right along with you. Be in a store, a phone rings, a song plays and everyone starts looking for their cell. You cannot get away from it. The electronic age follows us everywhere.

Just maybe we we better off when things were just a little more simpler. When you could go somewhere and you didn't take a telemarketer along. But I guess there is always a trade-off, we get something. We lose something. I guess because I am getting older I miss the old days. An a real life operator saying, "Number please."