I have written in the past about the very long car trips we took to go from Portland, Oregon to Buffalo, New York. When we four kids were extremely bored(most of the time) my mother couldn’t rely on her time honored “I have something you can do,” usually house chores. Instead we were left to our own devices. Except we didn’t have any electronic devices to pass the time.

My sisters and brother managed to spend a lot of time reading, but I got car sick when reading, so that was out. Poking each other seemed an ideal alternative. Sadly, this provoked my mother enough for her to stop the station wagon and rearrange our seating. The most dreaded pronouncement was “You will have to come up front and ride with me.” That would have guaranteed that the “lucky” kid would be terminally bored. We tried to walk the thin line between entertaining ourselves and being yanked up to the front seat.

One of my favorite toys was the number sliding puzzle pictured above. At the start the numbers were in a random order. I tried to rearrange the numbers in a sequence from 1 to 15 in four rows with 1 in the upper left corner and 15 in the bottom right. After doing that, I would scramble the tiles and try to get four columns of numbers with 1 to 4 in the left hand row and so forth. The task challenged me no matter how many times I did it.

Then it was back to the license plate hunt, the looking for letters of the alphabet search, and long naps.

When I first started this blog I was leery of having comments go up without my moderating them. I was used to the snarky replies to other on-line formats and didn’t want to become an open forum for more of them. I first moderated all comments, but then learned that I could approve comments without reading them for readers I had come to know. Generally I get one or two comments to review at a time. WordPress does a good job for me of screening out obscene comments and obvious spam. In three years I had never received a comment that I didn’t approve apart from ones advertising things.

This morning I was startled to read a comment waiting for moderation. I have no problem with people disagreeing with my viewpoints on things. I also appreciate people sharing experiences very different from what I have written. But this comment attacked my style, my meaning and my coherence. A triple whammy! I am not sharing it, nor did I respond to it. Many people write hostile comments in hopes of getting into a sparring match. He won’t get one from me. Intriguingly, the comment came from someone who doesn’t keep a blog. Maybe he just roams around spreading bad will.

My comments will continue to be moderated.

A fascinating article in yesterday’s New York Times introduced me to a new way to make money. Parents are hiring consultants to teach them how to get their children off their electronic devices. The job is lucrative; in small towns the going rate is $80 an hour, in large cities $120 an hour. I contemplated becoming a consultant!

Why on earth would a parent  need to pay another adult this kind of money to wean their child from electronics? It seems to me to be a symptom of a larger issue–outsourcing common sense. How difficult must it be to realize that children need to have alternatives to staring at screens? How much deep thought is required to become aware that eating dinner together while every family member is on her phone doesn’t count as “quality time?” Does no one realize that “monkey see, monkey do” applies to children observing their parents stare mindlessly at screens?

Maybe common sense is less common than I think. Otherwise why would the manual for my dishwasher state “If it doesn’t turn on check to see if the power cord is attached.” Why does the cup of coffee state “contents are hot?” Why does the doctor have to call multiple times to remind me of my appointment and then tell me to arrive 15 minutes early because so many people come late. I used to think it was my responsibility to write down my appointments.

I would love to hear from readers of other instances of disappearing common sense. Is this a worldwide phenomenon or just a problem here?

Coming around the corner in the grocery store last week I encountered this tall metal object beeping at me. Since I don’t speak robot, I was not sure what I was supposed to do. Was it wanting to go past me? Was I to wait for it to turn the corner? I stared at it for a while and it kept beeping. Deciding it had no better idea than I did about what to do, I moved around it and went on down the next aisle.

This robot is named Marty and comes equipped with googly eyes to make it seem more what? Personable? I found the encounter unsettling and asked at the checkout stand what was the purpose of this roving robot. Apparently it moves up and down the aisles looking for spilled items and then announces–in a robot voice–“clean up in aisle 4.” Previously I saw a disabled young man roving the store with a mop. Perhaps Marty replaced him.

Marty, it turns out, is equipped with a camera. “Only to record if someone kicks him,” I am told. Ha! Call me suspicious, but I doubt it. I guess this “soft” introduction of a robot into a  union employee grocery chain is to get us used to mechanical intrusions. The store has failed to convince all of us to check out ourselves, bag our own groceries, pay by credit card, and leave without any human interaction at all. Some of us Luddites still prefer to see a cashier when we buy groceries. But the writing is on the wall, I am afraid.

Maybe I can convince Marty to carry my purchases to the car!

In his poem, “Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock,” T.S. Eliot penned the striking line “There will be time to prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet.” Most of us can identify with “putting on a happy face” to go out into the world on days when we feel anything but happy. When encountering strangers at the grocery store who say “how are you?” we usually say something bland such as “I’m fine, thank you.” We are usually quite aware of the social niceties and are not fooled into thinking that everyone at the store is really fine.

However, social media platforms such as Facebook present a new challenge for many people. The faces posted on Facebook are usually similarly posed to look happy. There is a friend smiling over her kids, smiling in her clean house, smiling over her perfect dinner, smiling with her friends. Day after day someone may present a picture of unending excitement, adventure and love. Somehow the accumulation of all these images can worm its way into our own thoughts. We can feel something is off in our lives since they are certainly not as glowing as the ones in Facebook. This contrast can be especially jarring for someone who doesn’t pause to think of the artifice behind the Facebook personality.

A relative, a near recluse who spends his time watching television, told us that when he went to the mall he couldn’t believe how ugly most people were. His entire perception had been warped by constant exposure to actors and actresses. Even “reality” stars are markedly different from real life people. I hope that we can avoid the same phenomenon when spending too much time on social media. Many people there have simply spent a lot of effort to “prepare a face.”

It’s the 4th of July here, the day we celebrate our Declaration of Independence from Great Britain in 1776. Of course a war ensued, and it wasn’t until 1783 that the last British troops left New York City. But the energy here is on the day we declared we would be our own nation.

People throughout the country celebrate by setting off backyard fireworks, and towns put on elaborate displays of sky explosions. Laws vary across the country about what fireworks are legal. As a child in Oregon I could only legally use sparklers, long metal sticks which, when lit, emitted sparks. Our neighboring state of Washington had much laxer laws, and there things such as bottle rockets were allowed. Best of all, on our drive back from New York when I was 11, we bought all sorts of contraband in Wyoming where everything was legal. I am amazed that my mother allowed us to drive home with the explosives safely under the back street.

In Connecticut our grandchildren bought the array of fireworks pictured above. They look much more dramatic than they are. Mostly they emit sparks for various lengths of time depending on how much each one cost. Some also make an ear piercing whistle while they smoke. Nothing explodes and nothing goes airborne.

I suppose the danger of these things makes them especially appealing to kids. Hence the state regulations on their sale. But in “Live Free or Die” New Hampshire, two states over, everything is legal. Large billboards on our highways encourage us to cross the state lines and buy from Phantom Fireworks. Despite pleas from the kids, we stick to our less flamboyant but safer stock.

May you have a great day whether you celebrate the 4th of July or not. And remember we didn’t declare our independence to end up substituting a banana republic for a monarchy, tanks rolling down our nation’s capital’s streets not withstanding.

My husband is three years younger than I am. That doesn’t seem like much, but occasionally just that age difference means that when I say something like “blame it on the bossa nova” he doesn’t remember the song. I make these kind of random comments frequently and he usually knows the reference. For instance he connects with the Laurel and Hardy line, “fine mess you got us into Ollie,” and even gets it wrong(me not us) the same way I do.

We can break out in the same advertising jingles when pressed, much to the annoyance of our grandchildren. “Brusha brusha brusha with Ipana toothpaste.” “You’ll wonder where the yellow went when you brushed your teeth with Pepsodent.” And of course we can chant the same bad jokes “knock knock who’s there?” “Banana””Banana who?” Repeated four times and finally “knock knock who’s there?” “Orange” “Orange who?” “Orange you glad I didn’t say banana.” Loud groans ensue.

A good friend of mine married a man twenty years older than she was. They had a good lasting marriage, but I always wondered about what culture sharing they could do. He was born in 1927 and grew up in the Depression. She was born in 1947 and grew up in the 50’s. He knew radio shows she had never heard of. She watched “Spin and Marty” on the Mickey Mouse Club. Not earth shattering differences, I guess, but a lot of cultural ground wasn’t shared.

I have enjoyed the various times I have posted about some material aspect of my youth and discovered that a number of my readers connect with those same drinks, books, tv shows, movies or songs. Sure I love learning about differences too. But at home I appreciate the short hand between my husband and me when I say “hit the road Jack.”

Last week I checked a book from the library that was a guidebook to waterfalls in New England. While we have lived in Connecticut since 2001, there are many places we have never seen. This resource helped us identify a state park that straddled the Connecticut Massachusetts state lines. We set out this morning to visit Campbell Falls State Park outside Norfolk (one of dozens of towns named after their English counterpart) Connecticut.

One observation struck us when we first moved here. There were few visitors in many of the state parks. In Oregon, no matter the time of year or the weather we were bound to find numbers of other hikers wherever we went. Since Campbell Falls was rated a 5 out of 5 in the waterfall guide, we assumed it would be crowded. Much to our surprise, but obviously our delight, we were the only two people there. A gentle walk through the woods with a steep path leading down to the falls delivered us to the sight above. We even got to cross a stone marker with CT on one side and Mass on the other. The park really did cross state lines.

After our hike we went for lunch to a lovely restaurant in the town of Norfolk itself. Unlike some of the tired previously factory towns in northwest Connecticut, Norfolk seemed very affluent. I suspect it draws summer people from New York. The pub was upscale and the food was delicious.

We drove home content. We’re already planning our next excursion.

Origami, the art of paper folding, has always fascinated me. In grade school  I learned how to make a paper cup by folding a piece of paper following directions shown above. I was pleased with this accomplishment and actually found it useful to be able to produce a paper cup when I needed one.

Our book store sells packs of origami paper, every color and pattern you can imagine, and I was intrigued to try my hand at it again as an adult. My granddaughter wanted to join me, so we bought a book of “simple” Origami animals. We quickly learned that the Japanese definition of simple and our definition were vastly different. Although each of us could make a paper cup, that was the best either of us could clearly execute. She even had the good idea to watch kids do origami on You Tube. That only made us feel less dexterous than we already did. We abandoned our elaborate project of making a full menagerie of paper animals. We admitted defeat.

Every now and then when we are together at the book store I look longingly at the seductive stacks of origami paper. Maybe we should try again? Absolutely not she replies. One afternoon failing to fold was enough.

I have been reflecting on skills I really wanted to master as a young girl. Two in particular, whistling and whittling come to mine. I had already learned how to snap my fingers which had taken quite a while. I had figured out how to wink, closing one eye while leaving the other open. I failed to wiggle my ears, a trick one family friend demonstrated. I did have the ability to curl my tongue and flip it over, but later learned this was genetic and not a real achievement on my part.

Whistling confounded me. It looked easy enough. I was just supposed to pucker my lips and blow. (Imagine my delight when I heard a similar line by Lauren Bacall in “To Have and Have Not” though  that had a whole different edge to it!) I could not make a sound come out for the life of me. I must have spent weeks trying and failing to whistle. Then finally one day the sound I had been aiming for, the sound that would bring our dog running, came out of my mouth. Success at last. Then of course my friend challenged me to make a piercing whistle with my two fingers. I never did master that and remain impressed any time some one gets everyone’s attention with that feat.

I got a pocket knife when I was eight to take to camp. It looked very similar to the one pictured above. Although I had no need of a knife, I was very pleased to own one. Of course I had to find something to do with the new possession, so I learned to whittle. Whittling really only requires a stick and remembering to push the blade away from you. I really enjoyed watching little shavings pile up on the ground. A pointless skill since I wasn’t going to use a sharpened stick for anything. But I was pretty proud to have acquired a new talent.