Poke Lines

On Facebook, you can reach out and poke someone. Whenever they log on to their facebook, they might poke you back. Then you can challenge them to a game or puzzle, and if they are online, you might chat, in a lazy corruption of the English language. Kids love it.

I'm sure the telephone, when my parents were young, seemed just as wonderful. Imagine, touching a family member who lived half a world away, or around the next block. Before that time, if you moved to Wyoming, you were as good as on the moon...letters being slow and unreliable, winters and snowdrifts being long and isolating.

By the time I was a little tyke, phones were a normal part of life. True, families still had only one phone--big and solid and black with dials. I remember giggling with my little cousins as we "prank-called," asking unsuspecting, anonymous voices whether their refrigerators were running, or whether they had Prince Albert in a can. It's a good thing nobody traced the calls. My grandmother would have been indignant, and we would all have been confined to the corners of the living room to sit and pout individually.

Now, of course, cell phones have invaded like vermin. Nobody is ever alone anymore. My children call them electronic leashes: "Yes, Mom, I'm still alive. I'm just leaving for home now." "Just letting you know that I'm out of my studio and back safely at the dorm. Yes. I know it is late, but I have to work on these projects or they won't get done in time." I've noticed, however, that they wouldn't dream of leaving them behind. They have become comfortable with the idea of being able to poke anybody on their list. As a matter of fact, so have I.

Our Sunday Scribblings Prompt was Telephone