When I bought my Blackberry, I thought about the 30-year business I ran with
1800 employees, all without a cell phone that plays music, takes videos,
pictures and communicates with Facebook and Twitter. I signed up under duress
for Twitter and Facebook, so my seven kids, their spouses, 13 grand kids and 2
great grand kids could communicate with me in the modern way. I figured I could
handle something as simple as Twitter with only 140 characters of space.
That was before one of my grand kids hooked me up for Tweeter, Tweetree, Twhirl,
Twitterfon, Tweetie and Twittererific,
Tweetdeck, Twitpix and something that sends every message to my cell phone and
every other program within the texting world.
My phone was beeping every three minutes with the details of everything except
the bowel movements of the entire next generation. I am not ready to live like
this. I keep my cell phone in the garage in my golf bag.
The kids bought me a GPS for my last birthday because they say I get lost every
now and then going over to the grocery store or library. I keep that in a box
under my tool bench with the Blue Tooth [it's red] phone I am supposed to use when I drive. I
wore it once and was standing in line at Barnes and Noble talking to my wife
and everyone in the nearest 50 yards was glaring at me. I had to take my
hearing aid out to use it, and I got a little loud.
I mean the GPS looked pretty smart on my dash board, but the lady inside that
gadget was the most annoying, rudest person I had run into in a long time.
Every 10 minutes, she would sarcastically say, "Re-calc-u-lating."
You would think that she could be nicer. It was like she could barely tolerate
me. She would let go with a deep sigh and then tell me to make a U-turn at the
next light. Then if I made a right turn instead. Well, it was not a good
relationship..
When I get really lost now, I call my wife and tell her the name of the cross
streets and while she is starting to develop the same tone as Gypsy, the GPS
lady, at least she loves me.
To be perfectly frank, I am still trying to learn how to use the cordless
phones in our house. We have had them for 4 years, but I still haven't figured
out how I can lose three phones all at once and have to run around digging
under chair cushions and checking bathrooms and the dirty laundry baskets when
the phone rings.
The world is just getting too complex for me. They even mess me up every time I
go to the grocery store. You would think they could settle on something
themselves but this sudden "Paper or Plastic?" every time I check out
just knocks me for a loop. I bought some of those cloth reusable bags to avoid
looking confused, but I never remember to take them with me.
Now I toss it back to them. When they ask me, "Paper or Plastic?" I
just say, "Doesn't matter to me. I am bi-sacksual." Then it's their
turn to stare at me with a blank look. I was recently asked if I tweet. I
answered, No, but I do fart a lot."
P.S. We senior citizens don't need anymore gadgets. The TV remote and the
garage door remote are about all we can handle.
Every day as she exited the city bus, a little old lady presented the driver with a box of shelled peanuts. After several days of this, the driver's curiousity was aroused to the extent he thanked her and at the same time asked why she was so persistent in giving him a box of peanuts?
She responded with "Son, my teeth wont permit me to eat peanuts, but I do so love that chocolate coating!"
Dear Ma and Pa: I am well. Hope you are too. Tell Brother Walt and Brother Elmer that the Marine Corps beats working for old man Minch by a mile. Tell them to join up quick before all of the places are filled. I was restless at first because you have to stay in bed till nearly 6 a.m., but I am getting so I like to sleep late. Tell Walt and Elmer all you do before breakfast is smooth your cot and shine some things. No hogs to slop, feed to pitch, mash to mix, wood to split, fire to lay... practically nothing. Men got to shave but it's not so bad... there's warm water. Breakfast is strong on trimmings like fruit juice, cereal, eggs, bacon, etc., but kind of weak on chops, potatoes, ham, steak, fried eggplant, pie, and other regular food, but tell Walt and Elmer you can always sit by the two city boys that live on coffee. Their food plus yours holds you 'til noon when you get fed again. It's no wonder these city boys can't walk much. We go on "route marches," which the platoon sergeant says are long walks to harden us. If he thinks so, it's not my place to tell him different. A "route march" is about as far as to our mailbox at home. Then the city guys get sore feet and we all ride back in trucks. The country is nice but awful flat. The sergeant is like a school teacher. He nags a lot. The captain is like the school board. Majors and colonels just ride around and frown. They don't bother you none. This next will kill Walt and Elmer with laughing. I keep getting medals for shooting. I don't know why. The bulls-eye is near as big as a chipmunk head and don't move, and it ain't shooting at you like the Higgett boys at home. All you got to do is lie there all comfortable and hit it. You don't even load your own cartridges. They come in boxes. Then we have what they call hand-to-hand combat training. You get to wrestle with them city boys. I have to be real careful though, they break real easy. It ain't like fighting with that ole bull at home. I'm about the best they got in this except for that Tug Jordan from over in Silver Lake. I only beat him once. He joined up the same time as me, but I'm only 5'6" and 130 pounds and he's 6'8" and near 300 pounds dry. Be sure to tell Walt and Elmer to hurry and join up before other fellers get onto this setup and come stampeding on in. Your loving daughter,
Alice
Sad but true
Reply With Quote
Ryder... 
Originally Posted by Bob Denman
But in polluted waters???? 
it was fun while it lasted.
