The Days of Cheap Phone Service and Free TV

By Tom Morrow

  Do you remember not so long ago when we'd complain if we got a monthly telephone bill more than $25. We all scoffed at such a thing as "Pay TV," saying it never would become a reality. Have you notice how smoothly those expenses have crepe into our everyday lives?
  If you haven't looked lately, most of us have $100 cell-phone bills and if you're on cable, (which most of us are), our monthly TV and Internet charges easily exceed $100. My monthly cell phone bill (two phones) is $160; the cable bill averages $175.
  To be fair, let's break it down. First of all, most cell-phone programs allow us to phone toll-free anywhere in the U.S. (I remember charges of $1 a minute on the old land-line systems). For an additional fee you get Internet service, which allows us to check our e-mail anywhere our phone service works. For those of us who don't like to talk on the phone, "texting" is a neat way to communicate -- just watch what you're doing -- most of us can't walk, text, and chew gum at the same time. And, if you have a so-called "smart phone" or any other device made this century, it comes with a camera. My phone also can serve as a Wi-Fi transmitter. I won't bother explaining that to those still living in the 20th century.
  That phone camera feature is neat when you're traveling and you want to share a sight with friends and family members back home. You don't have to bore them with your slides and photo albums when you get back, you can shoot and send it as it's happening. This gives new meaning to "what I did on my summer vacation." Any smart phone camera is equally as good, often better, than most point-and-shoot cameras. The pictures are brilliant high definition.
  In addition to the monthly cost, our cell phones tend to become (as a friend calls it) a "ball and chain." I've lost track of the number of times I've had to turn around after driving a couple of miles to return home to retrieve my phone. It has become a part of me. I need it as much as I need my belt to hold up my sagging pants.
  Futurists now are talking about one day in the not-too-distant future of having phones and computers embedded inside our bodies. Computer screens in our eyes. Can you imagine the cost of that service? But, 10 years ago, who would have believed what cell phones can do today?
  I'll stop complaining because I get my money's worth out of both my phone and cable services. For $10 to $12 a day I get nearly unlimited communications in my pocket, and can gorge myself on news and movies to my heart's content in front of my flat-screen. It's all far better than those days of party-line telephones and watching a test pattern on the only TV station that occasionally popped onto our 50-foot antenna. If you can remember a time when there was no TV, electricity, and outdoor toilets, you know what I mean.
 
  OUT & ABOUT -- For those of you in town and might be interested, I'll be joining four other Oceanside authors from 1 to 4 p.m., Saturday at the Barnes & Noble bookstore on Vista Way. My new "Nebraska Doppelganger" WWII novel has just been released nationwide by Inkwell Productions, so I'll have a few dozen of those to sign during the afternoon.

  Stay tuned...