Thursday, February 16, 2017

Changes

 There was a day when I could tell you where the phone booths were. I would check them for change as I passed by. One time in particular I found over a dollars worth ! Someone must have been making a long distance call ! Then I remember when my oldest brother had a wireless phone. It was of a type called a Radio Common Carrier. He couldn't just call anyone anywhere, it had to be within a certain range. It was quite the tech and expensive. That went away in the eighties when cell phones came into common usage. Now there are no worries about any of that, now we know where the Wi-Fi hotspots are, the free ones ! I expect one day, in the near future all wi-fi will be free. Well we'll be paying for it somehow, just not a direct billing I'm thinking. Maybe it'll be in the form of a tax. Nothing is ever completely free. Either that or it will required in every home, like electricity and plumbing.
 My grandson just got his learners permit. He was driving to his soccer game and I was riding along as required by law. I asked him about using his hand signals. After he figured out I didn't mean the signals on the car but using his actual hand, he says, I knew them for my bicycle but not for a car. After questioning him further he says it wasn't on the test. He doesn't know if it is in even in the handbook. Naturally I filled him in real quick about what those signals where. Mark says he doubts if anyone would know what he was doing if he did that. I couldn't argue with him about that, he's probably right.
 I'll tell you something else I just don't see anymore. When you sit down at a restaurant where is the pitcher of water ? The waitress used to always bring one. I don't go out to eat all that often so maybe they still do, just not where I go. Still, I remember getting a glass of water sitting at the lunch counter. I guess they still have those, don't they ? They just remodeled our McDonalds and put in a few counters like that, you know with a stool. McCafe they are calling it. We just said we were sitting at the counter. It was a place to have your breakfast sandwich and gab a little bit before going to work. At lunchtime it was a busy place. I surely would give an awful lot to sit at George Greens counter again. The old wooden floor, folks coming and going getting their newspapers, watching him work that grill. Takes me back, those memories, takes me way back.
 I went just about every other Saturday to get a haircut. Frank Liberts on North Main. It was Mr. Libert you gave me the first haircut I ever had. It was Frank that gave me my last before leaving for Navy boot camp. Liberts barber shop had a bay window and it was filled with comic books. I could sit in there and read those comics all I wanted too. Mr. Libert never run you outta there, no sir, as long as you was quiet. There was a set of steer horns on the wall, I always admired those. Two chairs, no waiting, it said on a little sign. Seldom did I see two chairs in operation at the same time though.  Mr. Libert always used the chair to the left. A haircut was two dollars ! That is what I remember. Rumor had it Mr. Libert was running numbers, whatever that was. I was told to never talk about that ! A lot of men came and went from that shop without getting a haircut I can tell you that. That would have been in the 1960's though, before we decided gambling was alright and to fund our schools from that.
 I've seen a lot of things change. Like Rocky said in that movie, I've seen a lot of changing' goin on,  and if I can change, you can change, we all can change. I wish we could all just change back to the way it used to be. Wouldn't that be nice ? Well it doesn't do much good to resist reality. It is what it is. As hard as it is for me to believe to these young folks this is normal. One day they will be looking back with fondness hoping for the same thing. Change, maybe not so much after all.

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