Christmas and the Telephone by Orlando Bartro
Even the word is out of date.
Telephone sounds obsolete to many ears.
Telephone became phone; phone became cell phone; cell phone became cell.
New technologies require new words; and the use of text messaging is introducing new spellings and abbreviations into common discourse.
And yet, even an outdated rotary telephone represents the perennial urge to communicate, as Alexander Graham Bell, telephone’s pioneer, very well knew.
A successful invention fulfills our desires.
And the success of the telephone illustrates the great importance of communication between human beings.
We are not a species of singletons.
Communication is required for reconciliation and understanding.
Today, many family members live far away from one another, and Christmas is the time when many families will reconnect, if not in person, then via a telecommunications satellite.
Merry Christmas!
* Orlando Bartro is the author of Toward Two Words, a comical & surreal novel about a man who finds yet another woman he never knew, available at Amazon.