The Skeeter Daddle Diaries

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I don’t know about you, but I was sure glad that new Apple Phone finally hit the market and the hype can settle back down to normal settings. The CEO, Tim Cook, flattered himself that this was the Biggest Thing Since the Last Biggest Thing, a world changer, a revolutionary leap for mankind, a huge step toward personal insolvency for man. $1000 starting price. Well, actually, $999.99, keep a penny for a rainy day.

Tim sez the screen is border to border. Big! A game-changer. You plan to watch Gone with the Wind on it, Clark Gable will be about one inch tall. The Civil War will shrink to something slightly this side of monumental. Atlanta burning will look like a marshmallow roast for a couple of Girl Scouts. Tim mentioned how it will have facial recognition. Sweet! That’s gotta be worth a few hundred to feel like an actor in Star Trek. And apps, hoo-boy, it’s got room for some apps and plenty to spare.

I get that we’re a mobile society now. I watch folks in the grocery store checking their phone. I see people standing at the bus stop scrolling their e-mail. I hear guys in the stall next to me talking to clients who never imagine their caller is sitting pants down doing you know what. I know the kids would rather go naked into school than go without their smarty-phones. And I know I’m the last Luddite hold-out for not carrying a cellphone with me everywhere I go.

I gotta admit, when I buried my truck in the sand two days ago launching my rowboat down at the beach and began the long trek home, it would’ve been nice to just call up a neighbor to come and pick me up. But the walk did me good and believe me, the next day when I launched my boat I was a wee more cautious about driving onto the beach, learning — as usual — from the School of Hard Knocks. And yeah, I understand totally that the world wants to be hardwired together now , social media rules, privacy is dead, the virtual world is dominant and nobody gives a damn about some curmudgeon who walks the beach with his trousers rolled up and doesn’t carry a phone.

But Tim, ask yourself if this brave new phone, the revolutionary thousand buck computer-on-a-string, is going to make life better for us mere mortals. Or is it just another bump on your stock market valuation? And yeah, Tim, I know, you can’t call me to tell me which it is. My bad….

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