Pondering in the lady den today. Got company. We’ve been playing video games. I’m not very good at flying on my dragon. I go around in circles till I finally give up. She’s a patient teacher and we laugh at how inept I am. She lets me ride with her on her dragon. Pretty cool but I’m out of my league here. Sometimes I think technology just takes over the universe till we explode and start over again. This little one loves the river and goes hunting and camping but I think technology has taken some of the joy out of childhood.

What on earth did we do without cell phones? Guess I was the last to purchase one. The little phone did not take photos and I only used it when I was traveling to visit my children. Think I paid $20 for it, seriously. It was a little flip phone. When it was no longer serviceable I joined the world of iPhones.

No one called me on my first cell phone so I never took the phone out of my car. We had land lines in Roanoke and Alex City so we just didn’t think about needing cell phones. Fast forward and now we have no land lines and my cell phone is always where I can’t find it!

I need an old lady cell phone necklace. I drive Stew crazy asking him to call me so I can find my phone. I said when I moved to Roanoke I was going to leave my cell phone on the table where the home telephone had been my whole life but that didn’t pan out. Just when I got comfortable in the swing or in my chair in the lady den the phone would ring or ping. One of my older friends down the street got a land line just so she could call herself when she lost her phone. And yes, I’ve thought of that! I bet a nice attendant at Shady Oaks would find it for me.

My friend from Alex City spent Saturday night with me. She left around lunch Sunday to head home. I sat down in the swing enjoying the pretty day. Later I walk in the house and see her purse on the table behind the sofa! Didn’t worry, just thought I’d call her and tell her I’d meet her in Daviston at the post office to give her the purse. Course the phone rings in her purse!

For a brief moment I think, well, she’ll call me on her home phone. Nope! No home phone. I panicked a little worried about her not having her things and thought, we’ll she doesn’t know my phone number if she borrowed a phone to call me. I don’t know her number either but we talk almost every other day. Cell phones have spoiled us! Thank goodness I have my important numbers in my address book. I called her at work today and she’s coming to get her phone tomorrow. It’s a miracle I haven’t left my phone somewhere when I’m visiting family.

Chief used to get mad when he’d fall in the garden and we couldn’t hear him calling us. We’d go check on him and he would be sitting down in the dirt, fuming we didn’t come earlier. We’d always tell him he needed a cell phone so he could call us. I can hear him now, “I’ve been without a cell phone for 85 years and I’m not getting one now!”

I didn’t need the cell phone GPS either when I had Chief to navigate with his map collection. I’d never driven further than 45 miles without him navigating with his maps. I’d never make it to Thomas’s house now without my cell phone showing me the way.

The moment I’m most thankful for with my cell phone was the day Chief died. We had called the ambulance service to come and help us after Chief had fallen getting out of bed. Stew and I weren’t strong enough to help him up. I called them on my cell phone because our house phone wasn’t working. Every time we had a rain storm the phone would go out for a day or two.

The EMTs decided to transport him to the hospital to check him out. As they rolled the stretcher down the sidewalk they asked me our phone number so the hospital could call me. Covid rules prevented from me going with him. Of course I gave them the land line number.

After they leave, I remember the house phone isn’t working and I panic and run in the house to call the emergency room to tell them they needed to contact me with a different number. They call me shortly and ask me to come to the hospital to discuss his condition. The cell phone allowed me to be by his bedside as he drew his last breath.