There has been a bit of a gap between blog postings because nothing was sparking me until now and that something is phone books, yes phone books. I thought phone books went the way of payphones and Gangnam Style.  My friend Roberto texted me recently after he got a phone book in the mail and said “why do they still print phone books?”  How many people out there still use paper phone books?  Leslie commented on the show that the book’s main function over recent years was as a booster seat otherwise it usually ended up in the front hall closet until you realize no one in the family needs a booster seat so you would throw it into the recycling bin.  Then Wisconsin reporter Ryan called me and said a guy just showed up at his door to deliver his phone book courtesy of AT&T.  My first question was, “you open the door to strangers?”  He said he looked at his Ring doorbell camera first and decided it was ok.  Well I don’t know if I’d open the door because the guy is holding a phone book.  In fact, that would make me more leery to open the door. However, Ryan opened the door and said to the guy “why do I need a phone book?” pretty much the standard question in the 21st century.  Well this guy was prepared for Ryan’s apparently snotty question because he quoted Miles Standish that Pilgrim groupie on how some people would’ve killed to have a phone book back in the day. Yeah they killed alright, killed a bunch of Native Americans. Here’s the quote he threw at Ryan: “Yes we must ever be friends; and of all who offer you friendship let me be ever the first, the truest, the nearest and dearest!”  Well I hope Ryan learned his lesson about opening the door to strangers. Here’s the dealio, there was a time where when someone knocked on your door you would just open it. We didn’t have security cameras we had trust that the person at our front door was not going to pull our tongue through our keister. Nowadays unless it’s an official delivery person almost no one is opening their door to strangers.  And most of the time the delivery person just leaves the package outside your door.  Jesus H. Christ, the H stands for hokey-schmokels, what has happened to us as a society? Nobody just drops by for a visit and if they do you probably would pretend you’re not home.  Now, back to the phone book. There was also a time when everybody’s name, address and phone number were in the book. Imagine that today!  Now it’s only the Yellow Pages for businesses and I would imagine the pitch is: we’ll put your info online and as an added bonus we’ll put you in the print edition. And the customer for that would be someone without a cellphone or computer?  But kudos to Ryan for answering the door to a stranger, taking the phone book and not going directly from the front of the house to his recycling bin in the back. That’s because Ryan’s son still needs a booster seat.

Gunga, galunga,
Garry