From the Managing Editor, October 2021

I had a few interesting days recently when both my MacBook and my iPhone died at the same time. The laptop went first, displaying horizontal lines on the screen before abruptly going black. 

The laptop is where I accomplish nearly all of the tasks required to organize and edit this magazine, so without it I was left with a sense of abandonment. I let my bosses know I was somewhat stranded and then I thought, “what can I do until my machine gets repaired?”

The answer was, I could climb onto the roof of my house to finally address that leak caused in one bathroom due to some poor flashing where two roof lines join. I got busy ripping up shingles so I could uncover and replace the faulty flashing, then I knitted together shingles old and new to recreate the barrier of protection.

While on the roof, my bad knees frequently voiced their displeasure at the difficulties I was forcing them to endure. Nonetheless, I completed the work, I didn’t further injure my knees, and I felt pretty satisfied when I came down to the ground, sweaty and fingers covered with roofing tar, but with the repair project completed.

That’s when I discovered that my phone was having problems. I went to plug it in, only to find that the charging cable wouldn’t stay in place. Peering into the charging port, I could see some of the metal strips had become bent and askew. I thought about it a bit and decided that the phone had been damaged while in my pocket up on the roof. I had stuck a few roofing nails in the same pocket, and apparently the tip of a nail had maneuvered to where its point jabbed into the charging port, gouging the connection to the point that the phone was ruined.

I ordered another telephone, but I knew I needed to maintain power in the old one to complete the data transfer that must take place when the new one arrives. So I powered it down.

My abandonment was multiplied. I had no laptop, and now no phone, or, as I refer to it, no pocket computer. When asked a question about how something works, or what the temperature is, or if it is going to rain, or who won the game, I always reply: “Check your phone. It’s literally the world in your pocket.”

Anyway, 48 hours into my abandonment, with no phone to entertain me and no laptop to stare at, I began thinking about how such lack used to be our life on a daily basis. Yet, it felt odd, living without external stimulation. 

For some reason, it reminded me of my father. I believe I was six when a massive stroke felled him. Her survived, but then he and my mother divorced, and I didn’t see him for quite a while. Then I began getting short letters from him, postmarked from the little Oklahoma town where he had been born. Apparently he had gone back to his childhood home place to rebuild his brain; to re-master the skills we all learn in childhood but that the stroke has stolen from him. How to tie a shoe. How to button a shirt.

The letters he sent me were addressed by hand in an awkward and childlike cursive writing. Inside each was a short hand-written note, usually something like, “How are you? I hope you are well. I am well. Love, Daddy.”

At the time, I couldn’t understand why he even wrote, to impart such little information. “How are you? I hope you are well. I am well. Love, Daddy.” It was very confusing. Why was he gone? 

When Dad died in 2010, I was 49 years old. I was cleaning out his desk and came upon a collection of old legal pads. They were from his time of recovery.

Multiple pages were filled with that awkward handwriting. On multiple lines, over and over again, he had practiced writing my name, then more lines, practicing writing my address. He had practiced writing “How are you?” He had practiced “Love, Daddy.”

He had to re-learn how to write, and part of his effort was focused on writing my name again, to write me a few short letters. Looking back, I am sure it was very hard.

So, yeah, I have spent a few days without a laptop and without a cellphone. One might say it’s a difficult thing, being without the electronics. 

One might say that.

However, in truth, it’s really nothing, and when both are repaired, their brief absence will seldom, if ever, be recalled.

It’s not like I must relearn how to button a shirt. It’s not like I must relearn how to write my child’s name.

—Jonathan Austin