It Has Been The Best of Times, It Has Been The Worse of Times, It Has Been Something

I struggle ever day wondering who I am.When it truth I am a child that grew up when we had gone from a black rotary phone, the one phone that we always knew where it was,

through the times of a wall phone, a phone that felt so modern merely because it hung on the wall,

 (you were really uptown with that one),

 then we added the long cord to the wall phone (making it easier to hide in another room when your dad was sitting there listening to you talk to a boy),

I had relatives who still had the original number that seemed so old to me then,

and made my way into the world of cell phones. From the very first cell phone (I was cool I had a flip phone) that was large and the mobile phone in the car that had its bag. But hey, we also had one of the huge monstrosities that were the original cell phone. All of them turned out to cause brain tumors in people because of the radiation right at your head, or so we were told.

But as I am a child who has seen those phone morph from the ones where we only dialed five numbers and people were willing to drive 50 miles before they would make a long-distance call. Now everyone from Kindergarten up has a phone on them at all times.

The phone situation is so bad that car accidents are at an all-time high because people are on the phone. Seriously, we can't go five seconds without texting or talk on the phone, how warped is that?

You see I am still that child who was limited to phone time because we were on a party line and someone else might need the phone. But we also answered the phone then without knowing who was on the other end. NO caller ID.

I am also the child of knowing everyone's phone number off the top of my head, and now I don't even remember my phone number, it is simply Home. You see I am the child of a time when I carried a dime in my shoe because if you got into trouble as a teen at least, you had payphone money. A DIME!!

Now if you could find a payphone, I shudder to think of what it would cost. I am the child of a time when with the first cell phones you were furious if someone wanted to use the phone for anything or my God what if you got a wrong number call! The amount of money it rang up with your minutes could wipe out the National Debt.

 I am a child of the time when a phone meant you kept in touch with relatives and called someone when you were in trouble. Now kids text about 'Waz Up?'

I am a child of the time when we had one black and white television, and if we were lucky three channels! The only remote my dad had was my brother and me. Thank heavens there were only the three channels. Then, I am a child of the magic of the technicolor television and the joy of seeing Lucy's red hair and watching The Wizard of Oz as the color of Oz broke out into full magical glory.

I am the child that lived with TV's during a time when to rearrange your living room, which I love to do every other month, but then we had to have the TV man come with his little wand and demagnetize the TV. I am the child of the first remote for the TV, and it was like having a  magic television.

I am a child of catching lightning bugs at night, fishing all day, ghost stories by flashlight and homemade ice cream.

I am a child of the time that when you got in trouble, Daddy or Mama would whoop your butt. And the worse thing was being sent for your hickory switch.

I am a child of the time when we all had guns, we all knew how to respect those weapons, and kids didn't go to school and shoot other kids.

I am a child of the time when I took the Lord's name in vain the one and only time; Mama slapped me across the kitchen, and I never did it again.

I am a child of the time when running in and out of the church to take bathroom breaks got me lectured severely at the dinner table by Grandpa, the preacher. Still, couldn't bring me to get up from a church service to use the bathroom.

I am a child of the time of 8 track tapes, vinyl records, and listening to AM radio.

I am a child that has seen TV change from the shows that never allowed men and women to be on a bed together without one foot still on the floor. It was a time when we didn't have to see a love scene to know what was going on.

I am a child of the time when things were simple; people were happier, and families cared for one another.

That is who I am.