Column: Not the first time I've been behind the times ... or the last

Let me see if I have this right … with today’s smartphone, you can do the following things — let me know if I’ve omitted anything:

—Place and receive telephone calls.

—Send and receive text messages.

—Send, open and store any and all emails.

—Take and share photographs.

—Take and share movies.

—Store them without fear of overloading the system.

—Record any and all conversations without telling anyone.

—Compile playlists of your favorite music.

—Watch movies, TV shows and sporting events in live time.

—Plot driving routes to anywhere you’re going.

—Order anything, anywhere, anytime you want.

—Play any kind of games you fancy.

—Work crossword puzzles.

—Find any recipe.

—Book hotel and airline reservations without hassle.

—Get tickets to any show anywhere, anytime.

—Find a date who could turn out to be a soul mate.

—Look up the "Gettysburg Address."

—Drive to Gettysburg without an atlas.

—Stay in the best hotel Gettysburg has to offer.

—Rent a car, any make, any model, anytime.

—Post anything you want online, anytime and anywhere.

—Talk to anyone without holding the phone to your ear.

—Keep any (or all) phone calls secret.

—Look up the words to any Shakespearean soliloquy.

—Instruct your phone to write a term paper on “Hamlet.”

—Check your Fantasy Football scores in real time.

—Get live cam looks at the destruction in Jamaica.

—See the East Wing of the House getting razed.

—Spend a grand on the next smartphone model.

Because they all get obsolete after a few years, meaning your whole life could be obliterated unless you pony up for the new one.

I’m used to beating my boat against the current, being borne ceaselessly into the past, knowing the past isn’t really past.

I’m the guy who still reads books, has a library card, uses road maps, makes doctors’ appointments in person, the guy who doesn’t trust even half of what appears online and would never, ever, not in a million years, buy one of those high-priced miracle phones.

I’m perfectly happy with my flip phone, the clamshell classic, and am equally comfortable leaving it turned off for days at a time.

This is probably not among my best character traits — one of several dozen that spring instantly to mind — but I’m happy enough.

No matter where I go these days and nights, I’m always astonished to observe the way people stare and scroll, those plastic parasites as ubiquitous as online commercials and just as annoying. I’m always tempted to stand up and say something like, “Um, folks, do yourselves a huge favor and just turn off those infernal machines.”

Then, as a postscript, adding “No need to thank me. Just be free.”

This, of course, is fanciful self-delusion. In this year of Our Lord 2025, the world is so addicted to instant gratification that even the briefest delay can trigger conniptions and create virtual chaos.

I’m old enough to remember party lines.

These were circuits shared by two — or more — telephone subscribers and were commonplace up until the end of the 1960s, especially in rural areas, small towns and other far-flung outposts.

They were sometimes available at a discounted monthly rate, making them an attractive option for young families and the elderly population, who needed to be careful with their spending.

We were on one for a while after we’d moved from the duplex we’d rented to the house Dad bought using the GI Bill. He, being the more phlegmatic and practical of my parents, displayed no overt reaction to this new fact of life, merely going with the flow.

Mom, conversely, was big-city born and bred and had nothing good to say about what she called “Mayberry-itis,” a term she used when denouncing all the shortcomings our new town displayed including just one Catholic church, no public transportation and a surfeit of rock-ribbed Republicans.

For my part, I didn’t mind the party line, though I knew it was probably sinful for me to eavesdrop occasionally, almost always accidentally, on the conversations others were having. There was nothing salacious that I could detect, mostly health and beauty tips.

These days group chats are seen as progress, looping any number of people simultaneously, another example of societal breakdown, all owing to the all-pervasive influence of a smartphone culture.

There used to be something called “phone booths.” These were public calling stations, situated in busy places, offering folks glassed-in privacy so long as their supply of loose change lasted.

But like mailboxes on corners and house calls from doctors, they have largely disappeared from the American scene, signs of the further disintegration of modern society, one careening for a cliff.

Time for me to pull out my flip phone, check my messages, clear out the spam and put it back in the junk drawer, where it belongs.

Mike Dewey can be reached at Carolinamiked@aol.com or 1317 Troy Road, Ashland, OH 44805. He invites you to join him on his Facebook page, where rotary phones still have some retro value.