Maybe It’s the Phones

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I remember my brother John telling us that ‘someday it will all be on your phone.’

I didn’t even know what he was talking about - it was the mid-1990’s - I was still trying to figure out how to get on-line.

I guess it’s exciting to have such knowledge at my fingertips, but Obama said something at the DNC last night that brought it all to the forefront.

Getting lost in on-line battles has kind of created loneliness in our lives.

I thought back to what a Saturday felt like at the big house on the hill.

“Grandpa’s here! He brought cukes.”

“Mom! The Avon lady is here.”

The neighbors dropped by:

“Made a pie - made you guys one too.”

Seems lost.

The phones make us drift away into a world of confusion?

“Nobody is nice anymore,” Kathy mentioned on Saturday as we caught a tidbit of news.

“There are nice people,” I said, but then I felt my blood pressure rise as I thought about the 40 or 50 beer cans dumped in the woods between the 14th and 15th hole of my favorite golf course.

“Someone actually pulled their cart to the side - gathered up all the cans and then walking past the two garbage cans - heaved them into the woods.”

Pisses me off.

Did the phones do that?

They certainly allowed us to choose sides and be manipulated by algorithms.

Maybe the next generation will figure it all out.

Probably not.


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