The Phone

Bubba, aka Hayden, was out helping papa dig up my front yard. (Side note: yes, it was a mess, and yes, it was worth it to have the sprinkler lines fixed). I was at school so I missed the fun. But Bubba was definitely helping papa dig dirt.

(Phone - never leave home or pants without it.)

Suddenly, Hayden stopped. "Oh, just a minute, I got a phone call."

He then proceeded to pull an old cell phone out of his back pocket and talk on the phone.

"Mmm-hmmm. Yes. Ok. Talk to you later. Good-bye." And he put the phone away in his pocket and went right back to papa, ready to work.

"Did you get a phone call?" asked papa (secretly dying of laughter).

"Yes," said Hayden.

"Who was it?" asked papa.

"Daddy," said Hayden.

We were laughing again as we relived the Hayden on his phone moments (he has repeated this several times) and Kevin observed that we never did this when we grew up.

Because our phones were attached to the wall! We didn't walk around and stay connected every minute of every day. Those phones certainly didn't fit in our back pockets. They could be used as weapons, as heavy as they were. We had to sit on a chair or floor or something close enough where the phone cord would reach. Do kids even know what a phone cord is today? I mean besides a phone cord charger for the cell phones? When we had toy phones to play with, that's what they were. Plastic phones with tinny sounding ringing bells to make noise as the little round circle with holes was spun to the specific numbers we wanted to dial. Boy does that sound antique. And those cords were even shorter than the 'attached to the wall' phone cords.

What did we do back then? I mean besides actually walk to our friends' house or run around outside until it was dark or climb trees or dig holes or have bike races or generally spend all of our time using our imagination and energy to create our pretend worlds.

I suppose kids are still using their imagination, just in a slightly different way. I know Hayden does. And in this instance, at least he was outside playing, I mean digging, in the dirt before he had his phone call.