I'm certainly glad I live now -- not many years ago. I think about how my maternal grandmother Mary Bertha Telecky Kubik left her home in her twenties (she was listed on the Census as "a Spinster") in Minnesota to join her brothers and take up a homestead in Washington Territory and then never saw her parents again. I know there were letters that went back and forth and many of her siblings ended up out west, but I don't know if they ever talked on the telephone. I know long distance was very expensive and I doubt it was used very often if at all.
Then I think about the fact that I talked with two of my sisters today and one of my daughters. One sister lives in Touchet (near Walla Walla) and the other in Olympia. Daughter Dawn was calling from Little America, on her way home from taking Granddaughter Havela to Hesston, Kansas to start her freshman year of college. My Great Nephew Kyle is spending three weeks of his summer break with his Grandma Sherry -- having traveled here from his electrician training in Virginia. Sister Roxy was recently in California visiting her daughter Penny and her new family.
We are indeed a mobile society. We travel all over the country -- or abroad -- and don't think a whole lot about the luxury of being able to do it. We can pick up the phone and keep in contact with family and friends on a daily basis if we like. We use Facebook and other social media to view pictures of each other's life events: new babies, graduations, travelogues and pictures of dorm rooms!
Son Sean may talk about how much better it was in the "olden days," but I wouldn't trade the life we live today for anything!
No comments:
Post a Comment