Did You Receive My Text?

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     It isn't often that someone will ask that question of me but it has happened a few times over the course of the past decade or longer. I am not sure when texting became something others came to rely on as mainstream communication but it hasn't yet happened to me. When it comes to that unseen silver umbilical cord that prevents them from ever being out of reach of anyone that knows their phone number I am simply not interested in that connection of being found or finding others. 

    When fingering smart phones became the obsession it has for nearly everyone I know or see walking, sitting and even driving I was already a year or more in the rear-view mirror of the rest of the population who quickly embraced the ease of allowing one another to send all of those important messages they share to reach them in an instant. So I have missed out on being able to tell anyone that might be curious where I am, what I am doing, what I plan to do or simply, what's up?

     Now, I am not mocking anyone that has made texting as much a part of their lives as breathing, eating or taking in water, and it isn't my intention to heckle anyone for adopting that strategy to accommodate the needs of someone else, or to communicate their own needs and interests to make easier their busy lifestyles or to remain busy when it is required for them to be; I am merely sharing another example of why I am happy to be left out of something I don't need.

     Rarely is it important for anyone to know where I am or what I am up to but there was a time that wasn't so. It was before I retired in 2005 when I was actually expected to be accessible to more people at more times than I really wanted to be. Retirement gave me the freedom to play cat-and-mouse with anyone I chose until most people grew tired of that game and eventually gave up wondering or even caring. Were I to focus my skills on being an ardent texter that might change and I would have less time to myself and probably more to worry about than I want as I see that as one of the possible consequences.

     But in those years I frequently write about as the best time of my life; a half century before smart phones and feeling like shit more often than I would prefer because of aging and all that comes with it to worry about there was a simpler form of texting our mothers used when they needed us for something or had something very important they felt we should know right away. If we were someplace where there was a telephone they simply called us; if we were home with them-same thing! They didn't need to send us a message if we were in another part of the house, all they needed to do was raise their voices to a decibel loud enough to be heard.

     If we were somewhere close by in the neighborhood; same thing.

    But the argument is still good for anyone that wants to put it forth, that back in those days neither our parents, nor anyone else could reach us 24/7 minute-by-minute if they needed or only desired to. It's enough to make some wonder today how we ever managed to get anything done or even survive! But somehow we did and there are more like me than those people might want to believe that has never texted someone or received one. Most are probably much older than me or too young to be able to understand a keypad, or have stayed too poor to ever afford the technology, but there are millions out there who manage to get by and are okay without it.

     I have lived to see the future, and here waiting for me was "Big Brother!"  

    Had texting existed when I was a lad my mother would have been able to keep tabs on me at all times and she probably would have! I wouldn't have been able to experiment with life as much as I did during those impressionable years when there was so much out there to learn about and sample. Had texting been available to her I would have had to lie to her more than I did, and everything I did that I enjoyed doing but probably shouldn't have would have been cut short or changed somehow, and had that happened I wouldn't have grown to become the man I did. 

     Whether or not that would have been good or not could be kindling for a great debate!

   That photo that accompanies this piece is yet another form of middle 20th Century messaging and anyone that lived through that time gets it. It didn't matter where we were or how far away from shouting distance or if there was no phone around to call us; we knew what it meant! For anyone too young to understand it there is the ease of texting someone that might know; that is, if you know someone from my generation who has and enjoys the means of doing that.