Random thoughts: passing time (true story)

I was heading to Starbucks the other day, when I noticed something, that set my mind wandering. What I saw happens all the time now. It was a man in his front yard on his cell phone.

It was a large well kept front yard of green, green grass. Two acres or so and he was sitting in the middle of it, about fifty or sixty feet away from any shade. It was a bright, hot sunny day and he was on his John Deer lawn mower, with a wide brim melanoma hat on his head.

In days past, if you were expecting an important phone call, nothing got done to far away from the land line. It was quite possible nothing got done anyway, or at least not until after that phone rang.

I imagined the man set his phone on vibrate, because there is no way he could hear a phone ring over the noisy grass cutter. Maybe because he was expecting an important phone call.

It was during the week in the middle of the day, so my thoughts drifted that the guy was retired and this was one of his weekly chores. If so he was probably in no hurry to complete the task at hand, because nothing special was scheduled next. So, if he gets a phone call he can stop, turn the mower off and relax in his seat and talk.

It is said we live in the microwave age, we want what we want, now. We can’t finish our chores without being interrupted by another issue, problem or a simple conversation.

Before the nineties, if I was cutting the grass, plowing the field or working on the shed. I didn’t have a phone on my side, in my pocket or a bottle of water handy. I finished my job and went on to the next.

I felt the man was at a stage in his life, where he was not in a hurry to do anything and there is nothing wrong with that. He had all the time in the world.