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A FANTASY------SMART PHONES IN THE TWENTIES?
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That day, awhile back, sitting at my writing desk, looking at
my beautiful faded green-rust-orange-yellow batch of fake
autumn flowers and foliage (which the Beloved Editor had
so nicely fixed for me) resting there in front of me, in the little
vase, I must have dozed off----or maybe slipped into some
sort of dream or reverie....
My reverie was about my grandad, a cotton farmer down in
Dawson County, Texas---and most surely one of the best
there ever was. Excellence in everything was his ongoing
goal. He always plowed the straightest rows you can imagine...
in his cotton field...and in his life.
On a typical day, he'd arise at 4:30 a.m., have home-cured
sausage and eggs, bacon and red-eye gravy, grits, real lard
biscuits and home--churned butter. There was Ribbon Cane
syrup right out of a gallon bucket, and steaming hot Chase
and Sanborn coffee (his favorite.)
He wore, almost every day of his life, the serviceable garb
of all farmers of the day---blue-bib overalls, probably from
OSKOSH or J.C. Penney's. With this work "ensemble," one
didn't have to hitch up his pants a hundred times a day, when
his pockets were weighted with pocket knives, pliers, wrenches,
a big red bandana, and other farm-guy stuff.
Now his SMART PHONE, he carried in that big top pocket,
on the bib, where watches were meant to be stowed. Working
farmers didn't carry watches and chains. They got dirty and
caught on all manner of things in the field...
He finished breakfast and sent his first "CHIRP" out to the
world: "Just had breakfast...on my way to milk."
He walked out the back door, twenty feet to the grape arbor
where the milk buckets had been airing overnight, got one
in each hand, and started walking across that marvelous,
productive, fertile, frost-encrusted sandy soil---40 yards to
the barn.
He put out feed and the hungry Jerseys came-a- running.
He milked two big buckets full, and sitting there, on that poor
excuse-for-a-milking-stool, he rested a moment and put a
message on Talkplace: "Just got done milking. Bessie was
awful restless today and swished her tail more than usual.
There may be a norther a'comin!"
He deposited the milk in the kitchen for Grandma and left,
headed across the road to the mule barn. He stopped and
Chirped---"Headed down to harness the mules!"
He harnessed them for the five mile drive to his "Jones
Place." Riding on the flat-bed wagon with the big plow
lying on the wagon bed behind him, and guiding the mules
by deftly handling the long reins, he Talkplaced: "Running
late, and feeling sick; Higgins, my main mule kicked me,
and made a dent in my shin. I always knew he was sorry,
but I can't beat him---he's not rented."
He arrived at the Jones Place, and re-harnessed the mules
for the plow. He Chirped: "Finally in business---starting
to plow."
At noon, sitting in the shade of that old volunteer elm by
the fence-line, he was eating his lunch of three lard
biscuits and sausage, with his quart Mason jar of warm
water, when his Smart Phone sounded. (Being a person
with a wry sense of humor, he had selected for his smart
phone "ring" the sound of a donkey braying.) It was an email
from Ed Jones: "I need to butcher three hogs on Saturday.
Can you help me? There'll be some fresh liver and hog brains
in it for you!"
Grandad replied, emailing: "I'll be there...early! Have breakfast
ready!" This was the way of the early Americans. They helped
each other.
Grandad, feeling a bit sick from the mule kick, and from walking
ten or twelve miles, plowing behind the mules, knocked off
a round early and Talkplaced, Chirped, and drove his way home.
He was about worn out, and while milking stopped and sent
out on Talkplace: "I may have chosen the wrong line of work;
things are tough here...and I'm pooped out!"
He had his big goblet glass full of corn bread and buttermilk---
he called it "Crumble-In." Being extra tired and needing a boost,
he asked Grandma to chop an onion for him and put it in his
crumble, and had a second glass full.
After listening on his old Philco radio to the staticky news of H.V.
Kaltenborn at 9 p,m,, he said to Grandma: "Let's talk a bit."
Sitting there in their cane-bottom rockers, in the back bedroom,
which was where they lived, there by the radio, he said: "Ma, it's
1928, and the money-people have been predicting some kind of
a crash, with hard times a'comin. I was just wonderin'---what if we
gave up our Smart Phones?
I know we'd miss all the Talkplace stuff, and the Chirping and all
the gossip we get...but we've always been private close-to-the-vest
type folks, all our lives...and people don't need to know my every
move...or yours. If we gave up our phones, we could ease the strain
on our "egg money," and save $150 a month.
Maybe you could cut out massages, manicures, pedicures, facials,
and those expensive lunches with your Quilting Circle girls. I know
Ed's Cafe is a fun place to eat...but 50 cents for a bowl of chili...
and 5 cents for coffee? Why, we can make it at home cheaper.
And you know, when you're pickin' cotton, your finger nails and toes
are the first things to go---not to even mention how the sun and dirt
ruin your facials. I really hate to even mention the pedicures because I
know how much you like having those little piggies painted on your
big toes!
I just thought---if hard times are a'comin, we could use that money to
buy that quarter section that Ed Jones wants to sell for $10 an acre.
That'd be $1600. With the Smart Phone savings, and the other things,
and if I'd cut out shoe shines on Saturday afternoons at the barber
shop, I believe we could buy that land. It'd help our crop income a
right smart! We could get a few extra pigs and chickens, and plant
a bigger garden...and maybe ride out any storm.
And you know, Ma, how I've always thought poetry was silly. Well, I
was readin' in Myrtle's little poetry book the other night---a poem
by a guy named T.S. Eliot (never heard of him); and in his poem he
mentioned what he called---"endless palaver."
Ma, do you suppose that's what Talkplace and Chirpers are...after all...
just.... "endless palaver?" Do you think they'll last?
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