In 1975, a friend scolded me for taking 4 weeks to answer his
letters.
I carefully explained to him: He lived in New York, and I lived
in Sokoto, in the far northwest corner of Nigeria. It took 2 weeks for a letter to get from New
York to Sokoto. If I answered his letter
immediately, it would take 2 weeks for that letter to get to New York. 2 + 2 = 4.
Back then, a 4-week gap did not bother me; I did not feel out of
reach.
In 2011, I took a guided tour of Alaska. There were some Californians on the tour. Wherever we went in Alaska, the Californians took out their cellphones to see if they could get reception. They checked their cellphones when we were walking on glaciers, when we were kayaking in rivers, when we were trekking on mountains.
They were in constant fear of the Dreaded Cellphone Moment: the
moment when they could not get a cellphone signal.
Only once were the Californians unable to get a cellphone signal
in Alaska, and it made them panicky…panicky because, without a cellphone signal,
they were out of reach.
The Californians made me chuckle
then, but I don't chuckle anymore because I took a trip to Des Moines in 2014,
and used Google Maps on my cellphone to guide me there.
I drove to Des Moines to teach a Scottish Country Dance
workshop, and the plan was for me to stay with two dancers: Sue and
Gerry. I got to Des Moines mid-afternoon and visited the Art Center: a
delightful place where I snapped a bunch of photos with my cellphone.
The Art Center was about to close, so it was time to log on to Gmail to find the message where Sue and Gerry had sent
me their address.
Uh oh...my cellphone said “LOW BATTERY - 10%”,
and the phone refused to do anything. The GPS and the photos had taken
their toll.
I told an Art Center security guard
my sob story: I couldn’t read my email on my phone.
The security guard suggested that I could use an Art Center PC
to log on to the Internet and read my email. I told the Museum gift shop
person my sob story, and she turned her PC on for me.
I logged into Gmail, and Gmail became
very perceptive. Instead of displaying my email for me, Gmail told me
that I had never logged on from this computer before. For my own safety,
they would send me a special security code.
I breathed a sigh of relief. I
was one step away from getting Sue and Gerry's address.
Gmail said they would send the special
security code to my cellphone.
I now felt utterly helpless.
Then the security guard suggested that Sue and Gerry might have
a landline phone.
A landline phone? How
quaint! Also, how lucky! They did have a
landline phone, and their address was listed in the Des Moines white pages.
So, in 2014 I had to use 1975 technology to reach Sue and Gerry’s
house.
- . - .- . - . - .
Being out of cellphone reach is now an integral part of every horror movie made by Hollywood. Here is a 5-minute compendium of scenes where actors discover they have no cellphone service:
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