You know what’s crazy? I’ll tell you what’s crazy.™
Getting your first text message in 77 years.
DATELINE: Big Sur, California
The patio of Nepenthe is washed in sunshine. The exclusive eatery is wedged into the side of a cliff rising majestically in the Big Sur Hills.
The temperature is a perfect 77 degrees. The breeze blowing in from the West is refreshing like a hot wash cloth after a red eye flight to the coast.
I watch as seagulls float on a thermal rising up the mountain. The birds stretch their wings, allowing the air to push them to heights that makes me jealous I am bound by gravity.
As I sip on the spicy Bloody Mary in front of me, I let the melodic fusion, almost new age music, sprinkle down upon me. The audio is low, allowing the rustle of leaves and the sounds of the canyon below to fill our souls.
I’m seated at a long wooden bar that is facing the sea. We are poised on a cliff, hundreds of feet in the air. Before us is the perfect Pacific Ocean. In the distance white caps dance and the sun glistens in a samba of surf and sunshine.
Patrons are drinking cocktails and nibbling on sandwiches that cost 10 times what you would pay anywhere else. You’d bitch about the prices but when you consider you are sitting at a bar at the end of the rainbow, being caressed by the Gods themselves, you decide that price is not an issue for today.
Seated to the right of us is a young couple. They appear to be just out of college and they are talking quietly, staring at their smart phones.
“People don’t look at anyone any more when they talk,” I say to my father.
The 77-year-old takes a sip of Pinot Noir and holds up his phone.
It looks like something that he bought in the gift shop of the Smithsonian Institution. It is gray and square and looks like it might have been produced in a Taiwanese widget factory.
I laugh.
“You’re lucky to even receive a cell signal with that dinosaur of communication,” I say. “Did it come with a flint so you can also make a fire?”
“Hey all I want is a phone,” he chuckles. “I call. I get calls. That’s all I want now-a-days.”
The college girl next to my dad has been listening. I see her giggle silently.
I give her a quick smile and decide to create a little seaside theatrics.
I pull out my BlackBerry, not exactly known for crystal clear pictures.
“OK dad, smile.”
“What? What are you doing?”
“Watch I say,” cutting him off.
My dad laughs and I snap the picture.
“See,” I say turning the display screen around so he and the college couple can see.
“You took my picture,” he says.
“Yes, thanks for the newsflash,” I reply. “Now I’m going to text you.”
“What?”
The 77 year old seems a little caught off guard.
“Don’t worry old man, it’s not like you have to do anything. It’s not like I’m stealing your soul and selling it to the white man. You won’t need to wear a tin foil hat to conduct a strong signal, just sit there.”
The young girl laughs again.
“OK kids you are going to witness history. I know that you have text messaged a 1000 times today alone. I know that you are seated next to each other right now, and still choose texting one another over verbal communications. I understand, I too have teenagers. But I am going to send a 77-year-old man his first ever text.”
The couple laughs.
I push send and stare into the endless blue.
“So it shall be written. So it shall be done,” I say concluding my make shift ceremony endorsed by Verizon.
My dad holds his phone away from his body so that the gravitational force of the moon can some how aid in the magical journey of the picture I just took.
“What are you afraid that your shirt will get in the way of the text I just sent you?”
He laughs.
“How will I know when it gets here?,” he says honestly.
“I don’t know dad,” I say laughing out loud. “How will we know. What does your phone sound like when you get a text?”
“I don’t know. I never got a text before.”
“Ah virgin phone sounds. Now I’m getting excited.” A table of diners near us becomes interested.
“Are you guys feeling the history in this moment?” I ask the college kids loud enough for all to hear.
The young girl smiles approvingly.
My dad is laughing, eating up the attention.
Suddenly there is a chirp from his phone. It’s muted like a door bell submerged in a bucket of water.
Like Pavlov dogs hearing a dinner bell, the college kids immediately perk up. They instinctively check their own iphones.
“Was that my phone?” Dad exclaims with a big grin.
“I believe so Einstein.”
“So what do I do?”
“I don’t know dad. What should you do. It’s your first text. Everyone remembers their first.”
He flips open the phone and says, “It says I have a message.”
He pushes the center button and in a moment, he sees the picture I took of him moments ago.
“Hey look. There it is he says showing everyone around us.”
He is smiling from ear to ear.
Texting really is a technological marvel, something all of us do every day without a thought.
But when you are almost an octogenarian, receiving your first text is pretty cool.
Remember this is a man born before TV was invented. He fought in Korea. He watched man walk on the moon.
A picture traveling into space to land one bar stool away, well that’s pretty amazing.
The young couple laugh and congratulate him. Somewhere in the Nepenthe ampitheater of communication I hear quiet applause.
“Thanks Andy, that was fun.”
I take a sip of my second bloody mary and stare at the Pacific.
I want to take a picture of it, and text it to God and say thanks for this great random moment in my life.
And that is crazy.™