U.M. Phone Home and other Monday Musings

I don't remember having a phone in college.

That doesn't seem logical, even for the mid-70s, but I just have no memory of it.  I lived in the college dorm all four years, so it's quite possible that they didn't provide one.  There may have been pay phones available - they certainly were a lot more common at one time.  I have no one to check or verify this with - I am friends with no one from my college days, and my sister went to a different school.

My mother loved the phone, but I don't remember having long conversations with her from college (and my mother simply didn't have short phone conversations).  I went home a good number of weekends, in which they came and picked me up, or I got rides with others (didn't have a car until my Senior year of college).  At least through my Sophomore year I had a girlfriend, Cindy,  back in Bridgeport, and I saw her on the weekends I came up, but I don't remember calling her from school just to talk, or even letting her know I was coming up to see her.  I don't remember a single phone conversation all four years I was at the University of Michigan.

Even when Cindy started at U-M my junior year, the phone was not a part of our relationship.  Even when when she broke up with me a few weeks after arriving, I don't remember the phone as being an option as a way to try to talk to her or plead to see her again.

Some phone contact of some kind must have existed.  But it wasn't easy or all-consuming like it is now.  Now not only is the phone everywhere, there is texting.  Breaking up must be completely different now. Texting goes from constant to occasional to next to nothing and finally to being defriended or cut off.  I wonder how many young people break up now via text rather than in person.  I'm not sure that's an improvement.

And now my son Doug has started us on Skype.  I'm not really thrilled with it.  It's okay to see Doug while I'm talking to him, I'm not sure that I would not anyone else to see me, or for me to see them.  They can clearly see how dis-shelved I am, and I can see how they might be disinterested or bored.  I'm not sure I'm all that excited about it.  But when I have one son in California and another possibly fixing to go out there, it might have some value.

This week starts Hell Week at my work.  W-2s to finish up, 1099s to get to, and an outside audit all at the same time,  You may see some posts this week that sound like somebody desperately banging against the jail cell bars.

It also should be a week of significant progress at the Glenwood house.  Flooring should be finished and cabinets installed.  There is an outside possibility that we may be able to move over some stuff by the weekend.  They key, however, to moving in, is toilets on the inside of the house and not on the front porch.

Until next time,

T.M. Strait