Day Planners

It is cold and rainy and just not a red hot morning albeit 5am.  Outdoor stuff will have to wait another day unless this clears up which leaves a formidable list of things to do inside where it is warm or warmer at least.  It is with some pride that some of us stopped wearing a watch a few years ago.  The cell phone has replaced it as it has, unfortunately, any number of things but in the end it is one less thing to carry around.  I don't miss it although it was a great signal - just glancing at it - that let someone else know it was time to move on and boredom was just around the corner.

A while back, years and years back actually, and well before there was any hint of the Internet other than being able to haul out a Hayes 150 modem to connect to some data base and send a Telex, we ran around with Day Planners - the ultimate organizational tool, where you had the opportunity to hand write in your schedule and, if you were truly to get ahead in life and work, you used this little book to keep on top of things.  If you lost it, it was like having your current laptop or Ipad stolen out from under you.  These were the days before cell phones and pay phones dotted the landscape. It was also a time when we were ruled by the hour.

We thought back further and decided that there were actually, at one time, just a very simple day planner that everyone used. The sun came up and we got out of bed and got to the events of the day. Specific times were reduced to "sometime after sunrise or before sunset".  It was either dark or light, dusk or dawn. High noon meant when the sun was at the zenith.  The birds migrated twice a year and you could tell spring by the smell not by the date. Are we better off?

Enough.  Voice to text recorder unplugged.  Cell app turning on the coffee pot, adjusting the furnace and lighting the kitchen lights. Feet on the floor. Off to the day. Welcome to the new age.