Most people who know me know that I am not as obsessed with cell phones as the rest of the world. I find the dang things to be rude, impersonal, and downright annoying. With that being said, I do have a cell phone that I use primarily when traveling. Our family has no texting plan so you will notice my family all has normal sized thumbs.
Somehow, some way, however, cell phones continue to be a part of my life whether I like it or not. I am currently taking one of my very last graduate classes before I get my master’s degree this summer. My current class is on using digital media in the classroom. Sure enough, there is now a push to have students using their phones in the classroom. Because it is now an everyday real world technology, educators are starting to find cell phones more and more useful to engage students in class content. If you are a ninth grade geography student, don’t worry about it; it is not going to happen!
On the way back from the basketball game the other night, I looked back down the rows of dark seats on the bus. It was unusually quiet for a Friday night return trip. Every seat must have had at least one video screen of some kind lit up. Most were cell phones, some were I-pods, others were video game players, and one was a portable DVD player. Whatever happened to talking to your teammates on a bus?
This weekend I went into town to take a test for a census job. After going through all the preliminary information, we were almost done with all the directions until the grand daddy of them all: at this time, please shut off your cell phones. Everyone reached into their pocket or purse and shut off their phone. Everyone but two of us.
On Saturday, my wife and I took a leisurely trip to Duluth for the day as I had a short meeting I had to attend. My parents took the kids for the day, my wife did some shopping, and I attended my meeting and was able to stroll through Gander Mountain. On the way home, we have a tradition of calling the Two Harbors Pizza Hut from Duluth. We then pick up a few pizzas and bring them home for dinner with the grandparents.
About 10 minutes before leaving Duluth, our cell phone battery went dead. Furthermore, I left the car charger at home (what a great place for it). We never think of charging it because we never use it. So, I went into a gas station and made a call from the pay phone. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a teenage girl walking by giving me this look like, “That is
how those things (pay phones)
work?”
I could see I wasn’t the coolest person she had ever seen before.
As I went into Pizza Hut to get our order, I realized I should call my parents because we were running a bit late and I didn’t want them to make dinner if we were bringing two pizzas home. I asked the cashier, who knows us quite well over the years now, if I could make a call to Grand Marais. She handed me her cell phone, “Of course, I have unlimited minutes.”
I couldn’t figure out how to open or slide her phone open. After 30 seconds of trying, I motioned her over and told her, “I only know how to work my phone.”
She slid it open and I made my call.
I have to admit that cell phones are convenient and nice to have. Contrary to popular belief, however, you can live without them.
Mitch Dorr, a Cook County
High School Class of 1993
graduate, is now a social
studies teacher and coach at
his former alma mater. Mitch
coaches Vikings football and
boys’ basketball.
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