Phil Dirkx: Cell phone use at a urinal? How crass

By Phil Dirkx

I apologize for the coarse nature of the next paragraph, but it is necessary. It illustrates how our tsunami of electronic devices has dislocated the ways we socialize.

In November 2006 in the restroom of an Oregon restaurant, I saw a man chatting on a cell phone while standing at a urinal. A few months later, I witnessed a similar occurrence at the Indian casino at Lemoore.

Until then, the most unexpected cell phone incident I ever witnessed was on a tennis court in Paso Robles. A young woman was playing while holding a cell phone to her ear. It took me a minute to realize she and her opponent were just warming up, not playing an actual game.

Every day we see many people walking or driving while holding cell phones to their ears. A man may walk past us wearing a Bluetooth apparatus on one ear. He gestures with both hands and talks loudly. We pay as little attention to him as we do to car alarms.

When it comes to telephones, I belong with the dinosaur bones in a museum. During my early boyhood on the farm, we had no phone. When we finally got one, it was on a party line. If we heard six rings, it was for us.

I have a cell phone but rarely use it. It doesn’t take pictures. I’ve never used text messaging. I’ve never held a Blackberry. But anyone can see that the human race now does much of its socializing via wireless devices.

We also socialize via computers and the Internet. Instead of telling each other jokes and windy stories in person, we forward them by e-mail to our circle of “contacts.” I doubt any of us actually originates that stuff; we just forward it. Maybe it hatches spontaneously on the Internet from tiny, inconspicuous

eggs.

I started thinking about the

ways humans socialize after Mamie and I attended a recent reunion of the Clipper Club in Paso Robles. The Clipper Club was started in 1948 as a couples social club. It is still active, although it isn’t quite a large as it once was. At one time, more than 60 couples were members, with more on the waiting list. We belonged in the 1960s and ’70s.

The club met once a month, usually in the evening. The members were assigned to committees called watches. I think each watch was responsible for organizing two get-togethers a year.

The typical evening events had themes such as “Hawaiian” or “hippie” and included a casserole potluck and do-it-yourself entertainment. The entertainment often resembled today’s reality television shows.

Once, a newly married couple joined the club. They were told to wear their wedding clothes but weren’t told the evening’s theme was a shivaree— a noisy welcoming for a new couple. The bride found herself riding through downtown in a wheelbarrow pushed by her husband, accompanied by the other club members banging pans, singing loudly and generally making noise.

That was just one way we socialized before life became dominated by electronic devices.