Kind of Love You/Hate You

It's seems like the world is changing exponentially every time we turn around.  I remember my grandparents saying the same thing without the word "exponentially" in the sentence....primarily because the changes were coming a lot slower back then.  Technology is radically changing the way we relate and communicate.  This is not a unique idea - it's something that we all feel.

One of the things that disturbs me is that we seem to become more impatient and less willing to wait with every new update or download.  Does any of this sound familiar?

• People (and I'm including myself in this group) who used to be completely satisfied with receiving a letter delivered by a guy in blue with a bag over his shoulder now want an attachment on an email or a text.  I confess that I'm often too lazy to find a piece of paper and a pencil to write down a telephone number or address - instead I say "send me a text."  
• We used to pay for long distance, now we pay for data plans.  
• We used to walk out the door and set the answering machine, now we turn around and drive back home if we've forgotten our cell phones.  
• We used to memorize telephone numbers....now we remember speed dial codes.  Not long ago, someone stole my Blackberry in New York.  I temporarily replaced it with a cheap little phone just to get my granddaughter home to Atlanta (heaven forbid I would travel without some sort of communication devise in my purse).  My husband told me to call him when we got to the airport - I couldn't!  I dialed "G" and of course nothing happened.  I still don't know his phone number without looking it up.  
• We used to send birthday cards....now we send e-greetings.  (Can't really say I disagree with this one....have you bought a greeting card lately!  If you can find one under three or four dollars, it's a miracle!)  
• Instead of having lunch with our old friends, we "friend" (yes, friend is now a verb) them on Facebook, look at their pictures for a snapshot of their lives and then go on with ours.   
• Who sends a fax anymore?  When I lived in Saudi Arabia, I was amazed at the fax machine (then called a facsimile).  How was it possible for that letter to appear before my eyes all the way from the United States?
• My parents spent a lot of hard-earned money for a set of encyclopedias from a traveling salesman.  Now we google something or use Wikipedia.
• Greg and I used to read the Sunday paper and complain about the black ink all over our hands from the New York Times.  Now,  more often than not,  the same paper is delivered to our front door and it sits on the coffee table while we both read the downloaded version on our laptops.  

Well I'm sure you more than get my drift.  This is not an experience that is unique to me.  We are all living it. I have a kind of love you/hate you relationship with technology as you probably do as well.  I talked to my father about starting this blog together and his first comment was that he didn't want to be doing any "twitting, tooting, or whatever that thing was that was causing all the Wiener problems."  I assured him that we wouldn't be doing any of that.  But he proceeded to tell me a story of an old preacher which assured me that he "gets it."

The old preacher stood in the pulpit one day with a hammer raised over his head and said "I can do one of two things with this hammer.  I can build something like a house or a porch swing.  Or I can kill someone with it."  My dad used this as an analogy for the internet and technology.  There's good and there's bad - just depends how you use it.  So true and his years of wisdom and perspective are something that my middle school students lack.  Much of my day used to be spent counseling students because of the content of a note that was confiscated by a teacher.  That hasn't happened in years.  Now my first question when someone comes into my office is "Where did this happen?"  Eighty percent of the time, the answer is "Facebook."  The other twenty percent is "the bathroom."  

So why start a blog?  Why promote the madness?  Primarily because like it or not, we are communicating differently these days.  I envision building a Wyant House of History with it that the younger Wyants can take part in.  My cousins and I used to sit around and listen to our uncle's stories - it was our entertainment.  They're the greatest stories.  They are the stuff great adventure books are made of.  I've begged my dad and his brothers to write this stuff down and it just hasn't happened so I'm hoping a blog will help the process.  I'll be the typist.  They will be the storytellers. We'll lose something - the sheer joy and laughter that came when they were all together spinning their stories and playing tag team with their sentences.  But it'll be better than nothing.

The other thing I'd like to do is to share some real life letters that we have in the family.  I'll tell the story of that later but we have some family history written down in the way of cards, letters and journals that I think is valuable to our family and worthy of publication so that we all can enjoy. 

And so begins "Tales from the Beech Hills."  I'll send emails out when there is a new posting.  Visit it and follow it.  At some point, we will be able to put this together in a real life paper book that you can buy and put on your library shelf.  Does anyone have a home library anymore?

The Wyants from the Beech Hills
Front Row: Margaret  Diane, Walbert (Walb), Alberta (Bertie), Dwight
Back Row:  Doyle, Denny, Richard (Dick) and Duane

Sidebar thought.......

Several years ago when we were at a family reunion at Hamline Chapel, my daughter Ashli and I were sitting at my Grandma and Grandpa's grave and talking.  I've often told my kids that Grandpa died exactly one month after Grandma - of a broken heart.  So they've always understood that the two of them had a great love for each other.  As we were sitting there talking, Ashli said, "Mom, look at their names...They loved each other so much their names were the same with only two letters different."

Walbert and Alberta 

Something I had never noticed but what a sweet way to think about the two people who are the true authors of this blog.  Through their lives and the joy and love they brought to their family as they grew, they live on in our hearts.  So Walbert, Alberta and the six D's...... here are your Tales from the Beech Hills.