Another addition to the Over-the-Hill file

Time and technology are galloping forward and leaving me in their dust.

Today a twenty-something young lady asked if she could borrow a pen for the day because she had left her laptop at home and was unaccustomed to carrying a pen.

Listen up, whippersnappers! In my day, a pen or pencil was an essential item to have in your purse. It was a useful object for writing notes or reminders, jotting a shopping list, getting down the brilliant twist you just thought of for your novel before you forgot it, or hastily scrawling across your arm the phone number of the hot guy you just met.

In this modern, techno-advanced world, a pen is now as defunct as a cassette tape (those cannot be destroyed, by the way. Love 'em.) None of the afore-mentioned uses of the pen are now actionable. Notes and lists are inputted into the mobile device in your pocket, and nothing so formal as an exchange of phone numbers occurs--all you need to know is the person's name to "friend" him on Facebook.

And yet....technology sometimes fails whereas the pen goes into space with the astronauts. A scroll or a book may last millennia if cared for; a digital file degrades and becomes inaccessable when the software or hardware becomes obselete. When Munchkin destroyed my laptop, I continued to write by using parchment and quill paper and pen. There is even a blog devoted to the intricacies and beauty of pens and ink. Go check it out. Go, and be reminded of a simpler time when all you needed was a pen and a scrap of paper to do work rather than a $600 piece of machinery.