Columnist
When I was a kid …
This is about the point in the conversation when my kids flee the room. Yet it’s hard to avoid continually reflecting on the past, particularly when the world seems to spin a little faster each day.
When I was a kid, we made play telephones out of cups or cans that we connected with string. I remember being showed how to do it while watching an episode of Captain Kangaroo.
The stroll down memory lane is inspired by my new cell phone, acquired after a couple years of living without one. I never really wanted one. But on Sept. 11, 2001, when my wife had no way to reach me during my commute to downtown Washington, I decided to get one.
Because my wife usually reached me at my desk before I headed for the subway at the end of the day, the phone began to seem unnecessary. So I got rid of it.
My wife was the catalyst for the new phone. After a day of urgent business complicated by futile attempts to reach each other by land lines, she took the plunge. In the wake of the subway bombings in London, it seems as if her timing couldn’t possibly be better.
So far, I’ve figured out how to turn it on. I plan to turn it off as soon as I remember where I put it down. Before it vanished I tried to take a picture. I kept getting a message that said “Photo Capture Failed!” Text messaging is probably out of the question.
I can derive some dubious comfort from knowing that I am no longer so far behind the zeitgeist. My wife and I have joined the nearly 70 percent of the U.S. population who have cell phones.
And the Walt Disney Co. and Sprint Corp. have announced a plan to offer service agreements to 8- to12-year-olds. They are touting the safety advantages of cell phones for kids. In these uncertain times, such benefits aren’t hard to appreciate.
Wireless companies are also pushing the phones as educational gadgets. But I feel a bit queasy about foisting yet another gadget on a group that should be concentrating on more fundamental things, such as handwriting.
I’m no Luddite, I swear. I love my laptop, and I hope someday to own an iPod. Of course, by the time I get one, they may have gone the way of cans and string.
Meanwhile, the kid under your roof will have no trouble tricking out his phone with all kinds of extra doodads that have nothing to do with safety or learning. If he doesn’t program his phone to block your calls, you’ll at least be able to summon him for supper.
When I was a kid, if you couldn’t hear your mother yelling for you, you’d wandered too far. Oops, there I go again.
A former reporter for the American, Jabari Asim is a columnist for the Washington Post.