Saturday, October 11, 2008

Email Family

As I said earlier, I am really lousy at keeping in touch; I hate talking on the phone, can never sit long enough to write letters, and never can find stamps. So Email is my best option for keeping in touch with my family and friends. Unfortunately, my email box fills up with spam so I only look about once a week. But, today was a goldmine!! There were notes from three of our grown kids with pictures, and a wonderful piece that my brilliant granddaughter, Danielle, in Gig Harbor has written to present at her Debate competitions. I'll try to put it in here for all to see. I now have a new snapshot of Lisa and her boys at a Cleveland Indians game, and a nice picture of Baby Caleb on the Floating Boardwalk on Lake Coeur d'Alene. It seems that the more mobile our society has become, the more we need to rely on the technology to maintain the perception of the extended family unit.

When I was six years old, living with my parents and brother in an upstairs flat on Delaware Avenue in Buffalo, New York, my grandparents lived downstairs. We were all close... just a shout away...and I remember life being simple and unfettered by gadgets. Everyone I cared about was right there, no need for gadgets then.

I guess the gadgets allow me the privilege of being "a shout away" from the kids and the grand kids, from my brother and his family, from Nephew Brandon (the family clown), and even from my oldest- in duration not age- friend Susie Speyer, who, like me, left the simpler days of Delaware Avenue for San Francisco.... thanks to this email gadget, we can still play together.

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