Young, connected people are taking over

When young people see me, if they see me at all, I’m sure it’s a ‘look at the old guy with the hair and glasses.’ And because they’re young, there will be no curiosity, but I don’t care, as the world is now theirs, no longer mine. Their world seems not to move about them, instead, showing up in the palm of a hand. I was reminded of this when I recently gathered my coins and purchased a new car. It’s a gorgeous piece of machinery; however, there are functions I cannot access because the car has to somehow relate to a cellular telephone, something I do not carry. A cellular telephone would make me available, not something I care to be, whereas young people seem to revel in their availability. Not carrying a phone is equivalent to wearing Harry Potter’s invisibility cloak. As I said, it’s a younger person’s world, if not now, very soon, and good luck to them.

A couple of nights ago at dusk, a large fox crossed the field in front of my house, suddenly stopped, turned toward me, made eye contact for a brief moment, concluded I was not a threat, and moved on, trotting toward the west, where the sun was well below the horizon. My encounters with wild creatures are always benign, sometimes a little unsettling, but not dangerous. We wish each other no harm. The following night I was driving down my lane and startled two large rabbits conferring in the middle. They ended their conversation, split up, and sprinted along the grass on either side of the lane, heading toward the house, me in the middle. Any self-respecting high school marching band director would have loved the pattern the three of us created, maybe conducting “Sweet Caroline” or, “Another One Bites The Dust” as we moved in tandem. Band students are likely no longer familiar with the works of Sousa, King, or Willson, instead leaving those memories to those of us still hanging on, our dusty instruments somewhere in the basement.

I mentioned young people. I have a few memories from my youth, and one is a memory of a television show that was on when I was about 10 years old. It was a show I thought to be pretty lame, but there was a character I enjoyed, a puppet named Lamb Chop. The puppeteer was a woman named Shari Lewis, and the show was called, cleverly enough, the “Shari Lewis Show.” In addition, there was another live show called “Captain Kangaroo,” featuring a couple of men about whom I felt nothing, but they conversed with a creature I did care about, a puppet called Mr. Bunny Rabbit. Odd, my affinity for animals, even ones that are toys; so much so that the cannonball bed I inherited from my grandfather 40 years ago now has a puppet on three posts, a dog, a bear, and Lamb Chop.

The doe with her twin fawns has determined that my place is safe, as she and her babies move past the front of the house multiple times a day, noses down, chewing the grass before heading into the woods. This time of year, my woods are very dense, something out of a Robert Frost poem: “lovely, dark, and deep.” I wish I had miles to go before I sleep, but I fear it’s only a few kilometers and, for now, I’m content sitting in a chair in a silent clearing under a tall, old tree at the edge of the dark woods, breathing the cool air rising from a fragrant, ancient hollow, air that smells of soft wildflowers and gently waving green grasses, reminding me of the sweet, wintergreen air of my youth.

Kurt Ullrich lives in rural Jackson County. The Dubuque Telegraph Herald has published a 60-page magazine of Kurt’s columns. The magazine can be purchased here.