Heartwings says, “Telephones have evolved, but they do still do the same thing.”
Cell phones have grown to be the norm, these days, rather than the exception. Over the past twenty or so years they have grown in use until now they are ubiquitous. I remember years ago thinking a man jabbering away as he walked down the sidewalk, was talking aloud to himself—and of course he was using one of those phones with a microphone near his mouth. Many people walk along looking at their cell phones, ignoring the world around them. I was once involved in an accident with a woman who was looking at hers while she was driving.
Like all those in my age category, I grew up with a single home telephone. As in most homes, the phone sat on a table, in the hall or somewhere central. Often it was in a kind of booth, a small room with a door beneath the stairs to a second floor. Wherever it was located, it wasn’t detachable nor did it do more than receive and transmit calls. In those days, our family telephone number had only three digits; the one my great aunt was assigned had two. Perhaps she got it back when the phone first went into use. I never thought to ask.
Then, when you picked up the handset, a voice—usually that of a woman, said, “Number please.” You could have a discussion with the operator, or even get advice. If you needed a number, you said, “Information, please.” There was no dial tone, or even a dial, for that matter. Nor did anyone get a spam call. Actually, spam hadn’t been created yet. That was a product of WWII. Long distance, meaning outside the local area was charged by the minute, and could be very expensive.
Many people have given up their land lines in favor of exclusive cell phone use. I’ve resisted this for several reasons. Though we do have cell phones, we still have a land line, of course the phone itself is mobile. I prefer land line reliability over the capriciousness of a cell phone.as well as the comfort of the handset. Aside from how much more comfortable the handset is to hold, it doesn’t heat up over time, as a cell phone does. Of course, this also means we get lots of spam calls. At our request to a helpful number, some spam calls we receive, though not all, are blocked. This results in our getting only a single ring, then silence.
There is another aspect to the land line that keeps me using it: a kind of of entertainment in the voice that delivers its message when it rings: most of our land line telephone calls are identified by a robot, a mechanical voice that calls out their source. The mispronunciations are almost always amusing. They also convey information. We have discovered that spam is easily identified by the MA ending, mispronounced ma or as whatever the state is. Best of all is the one that always makes me wonder how the phone knows, and it is certainly my favorite: “probably fraud.”
While at Thanksgiving we are reminded to be grateful, that is surely not the only time to do so. it is vital to remember to be thankful frequently each and every day of our lives. For some time now I have begun and ended each day with this little prayer: “Thank you for this day and for all my days.” As often as possible each and every day I remind myself to acknowledge my gratitude for any good experience and even those that might not have been so good, because of the knowledge gained.
My young daughter asked if she could draw a portrait of me. I sat in the living room, smiling as she drew studiously, being very careful in her five year old way, to get everything just right. Suddenly she ran over, peered at my face and then went back to her drawing. Her pencil went dot, dot, dot on the paper as she put in her final touches. Proudly she showed me the portrait. To my dismay, the dots were a representation of a recent break-out around my lips.
The perspective I bring to my everyday life influences the way I understand what is happening, and how I respond to what seems to me to be going on. When I look with compassion on how life has evolved for someone, I also feel differently about how they act toward me or anyone else. I may then see the gift they may bring me. Gratitude and compassion are closely intertwined. Both are necessary for a truly happy life.
When my children were small I used to insist they eat at least three bites of anything they thought they didn’t want to eat at all. My theory was that by my having them do that, they would grow up to eat a broad variety of foods. I was even bold enough to insist that any visiting friends do the same. No one ever seemed to make too much of a fuss over this, nor did I get any bad feedback from my children for doing that either. They did grow up to be adventurous eaters and to enjoy trying new foods.
As we were moving into our Forest Lane apartment, we needed to assemble some of our new furniture. My tools had not yet made it over to our new home so I went knocking on my neighbors’ doors to see if I could borrow a hammer. Met with headshakes in the negative at each one I tried, I arrived at the last one. A spry older woman with a wonderful smile opened it. “Yes,” she said, “I have a hammer I can lend you.” That was approximately ten years ago and the beginning of a wonderful friendship with my neighbor Laura Dodge. I loved her spunk and her bright mind, but most of all I treasured her kind heart.
Pujakins 