A Day Off

I took the day off today. "Took off from what?" you are asking. I know I'm retired so it gets difficult to define just what a day off means. This day off means that I decided not to shovel snow or do any physical labor. I didn't really decide, my body decided. Wednesday I shoveled and horsed the snow blower around to get the area in front of our garages cleared and yesterday I shoveled some more to clear up the front sidewalk to make an opening to the street. Anne shoveled too, but she's more sensible and stops when she feels tired. I have no such sense and just keep on going. Anyway, today my body was telling me that it was time to take a rest. So I did, until a little while ago when I got the shovel and cleared up some ice on the walks.

I always like to clear a path to the street, but it is difficult when the plows leave three feet of the edge of the street unplowed until hours after the snow stops and then come by once again. This is, of course, after everyone has cleared their walks.

We were without telephone, Internet and TV all day yesterday because our cable wire came loose from the house and was dangling low over the street when a snow plow hit it and took it out all the way. Cablevision showed up after dark and was ready to fix it, but the police wouldn't let them do it in the dark. They were here before 9:30 this morning and got it all back up running. I was impressed by the service. Last March, when we had another major snow storm, the cable wire came down and they got here the next day and fixed it.

So, while we were in the dark ages, Anne and I had to actually talk to each other and listen to radio to stay informed. For you younger folks, radio is like television, but it doesn't have any pictures. All you get is the sound. I know, primitive. It got me to thinking about what people did before Internet and television. My parents had neither. We got a television when I was in the third grade and I remember that there wasn't all day programming, but mostly a few shows on in the evening and only in black and white, if you can believe.We had a phone, but only one in the house and we had a private line. Many other people we knew had party lines. That was where one, or two, or even three families shared one phone line. These were people you didn't know and the idea was that if you were on the phone and you heard a click meaning that one of the other parties was trying to make a call, the custom was for you to hang up and let the other person do so. If you were the one trying to make the call and you picked up two or more times and the line was still busy, you could say that you needed to make a call and the other party usually hung up. You could also eavesdrop on another party's call but, in polite society, that wasn't done. We didn't have any of these problems because we had our very own private line. I remember playing with toys, building things with Lincoln logs and blocks and something resembling Lego. I played outside a lot with friends or went to various friends house to play there. My mother liked to sew, make delicious meals and putter around the yard in the summer. My father liked to work in his shop and kept busy with house maintenance in nice weather.

Yesterday we listened to the radio some and I read. I find that I don't watch television all that much and I use the computer mainly for reading emails and finding out what's going on. That doesn't take much time at all. Most of the emails I get are ads for something. But, it feels like without the Internet and television we are somehow not properly connected to the world. We didn't have our regular phone either, of course, but we were able to communicate with a cell phone. We have become so reliant on being able to connect with the whole world. Why, you can even take classes on the Internet and get legitimate credit at a scholastic institution. I understand that some of the teachers of these classes are quite good. You only realize how connected we have become when you become unconnected. Anne was trying to find a particular radio station, but wasn't sure of the frequency. We couldn't look on the Internet. The newspaper no longer lists radio stations and the phone book only lists two radio stations, neither of which were local.

So, how do we stay connected when a storm disrupts our communications? In this instance it was only for one day, but what if it were for a longer period? Do we all really need to be that connected? Do we all need cell phones and wi-fi hot spots in addition to our home based links? When we go off on vacation we are usually happy to be without these facilities. Has the Internet become an essential tool in our modern society? I think it is becoming more so every day. There are more and more links to things that are only available over the Internet. Messages, coupons, notices of this and that, emails and on and on. It was not that long ago that the Internet was unknown to most people who are now thoroughly ensnared in its web. I don't have an answer and I don't even know if there is a question, but these are some of the things I have been thinking about. I need to get back to my book.