Connections
Guest Posts

Sunday Guest Post Series: Connections

Retirement Reflections

Grammy's Grid

Hi Everyone! Thank you to Donna for inviting me to join Round Two of this Guest Post Series.

Isn’t it wonderful to be able to connect with people from all over the world via the internet? Due to my blog, I ‘met’ Donna online. That likely would never have happened without the internet.

Back when I was a child, some of the adults in my area used to connect with others via their CB radios. They’d exchange postcards from people all over the United States and Canada.

As a teenager, I had a couple of pen pals who lived in Europe. They were also teens about my age and we enjoyed writing to each other. At some point, we lost contact. I think of them at times and wonder how their lives turned out.

Now we have the World Wide Web! WOW! Connecting with others sure has come a long way. What a great time to be alive!!

I wonder what the people who first used the United States Postal Service back in 1775 would think about our various ways of communicating today? And I think about my grandbabies and wonder what the future holds in store for them regarding communication and transportation.

I would love for you all to visit me at Grammy’s Grid where I blog from Alabama about things to amuse, inform, inspire, and make you laugh! You can read all about me here.

Thanks again, Donna.
Grammy Dee
Grammy Dee

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From Retirement Reflections: It is a pleasure having Dee join us here again. Be sure to check out her Link Parties as well as her Blogging Grandmothers Series. I believe that you will find both to be quite interesting to read — even if you are not a grandmother. If you are a grandmother, please consider linking up! Next week, Liesbet, from Roaming About, will share the ins out outs of House Sitting. Please join us then to discover if this is something that you might wish to explore. I look forward to see you there!

Published by Retirement Reflections

Prior to retirement, I lived and worked in Beijing China for fourteen years (Middle School Principal/Deputy Director at The Western Academy of Beijing). Leaving international life behind, my husband and I retired to Vancouver Island in June 2015. To document both this transition and our new adventures, ‘Retirement Reflections’ was born. I hope that you enjoy reading these reflections, and will be willing to share your own.

48 thoughts on “Sunday Guest Post Series: Connections”

  1. While it has been 17 years, it really doesn’t feel that long ago when I had to use poste restate (general delivery) and collect calls on my travels to communicate. The phone booths were expensive, and the “news” awaiting me at various post offices all over the world, was old, or had to follow me, since I had moved on. Yep, hurray for the internet. Especially our family members are happy about our instant communication now. 🙂

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    1. Hi, Liesbet- You are right. I distinctly remember having to wait for other members of our ‘party line’ to get off of the phone before I could use it. I also clearly remember needing to use a Gestetner Machine or a Ditto Machine to reproduce work for students to use in my classes. While there are many things about those past days that I miss, the examples above I do not! Thanks for stopping by and reading Dee’s post here.

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  2. I still keep in touch with some of my pen pals. The internet has changed how and how quickly communication is done. Now about transportation, hmm, a “beam me up, Scott” would help my travels.

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    1. Hi, Natalie – It’s cool that you continue to keep in touch with some long-time penpals. Do you now keep in touch by email and social media, pen and paper, or both? As I am currently traveling, a ‘beam me up’ would be wonderful!!

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      1. I keep in touch with my pen pals by email, and pen and paper, Donna. I’ve visited them IRL, too. I’m very loyal to my friends even though I wasn’t born in the year of the dog 🙂

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  3. Staying in touch with friends and family is so important. Sadly, the days of letter writing seem to be slipping away. I’m a big card person, so I never miss the opportunity to send one so others know I’m thinking about them.

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    1. Hi, Jill – I must admit that I have tended to slip into sending e-cards rather than Hallmark cards through the mail. It would be sad to see card sending become a lost art. I will need to reconsider my card sending habits! Thanks so much for stopping by and commenting.

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  4. Isn’t it a lovely way to ‘connect’ with people? I used to have pen pals in Canada and Europe and now I seem to have a similar connections through blogging. A great reminder of our ability to communicate around the world.

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  5. This is an especially interesting subject for me today because my husband and I woke up This morning to find out that we have no internet connection. Fortunately, I have my smartphone (which I am using now… please excuse any fat finger typos) but it feels so odd to be “disconnected.” The internet has given us the ability to make connections and stay connected so easily. Yes, we may spend too much time with our screens, but I wouldn’t give up this technology for the world. I can’t imagine what the future holds, but I do know that I’m going to be grumpy until this Wednesday, when supposedly they’ll send out service techs to our house to fix things. Nice post!

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    1. Hi, Janis – I am so sorry to hear about your lost internet connection. That is so frustrating! We are currently traveling (Singapore and Cambodia) and have quickly (and expensively) discovered that Singapore does not have “Roam Like Home”. Richard and I wandered around for days feeling like an arm had been cut off. (When is the next transit? I don’t know I can’t look it up. How far to the restaurant? I don’t know, I can’t look that up either….You get the idea!) Wishing your internet a speedy and thorough recovery!

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  6. Tee hee! Does anyone remember calling home on the phone, letting it ring twice, then hanging up so that your parents knew you had arrived safely back at college? Or having your parents yell at you to “get off the phone because someone may be trying to call.” Those were the days! As for communication by mail, when I was in college, my dad would call up and say, “I’m so sorry to hear your arm is broken!” as I apparently didn’t write home enough! Great post, Grammy Dee! ~ Lynn

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  8. Gosh I remember pen pals Dee and now I hardly receive any physical mail it is all through the internet! Thank you Donna for another guest and I know Dee through her great work promoting Grandmothers who blog. I love supportive bloggers and you both fit into that category. Have a great week!

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  10. I had a Japanese penpal for years and I remember the joys of the one telephone in the kitchen (with the curly cord) No private conversations in those days! Simpler times though and we didn’t even have an answering machine – people called back if they missed you.

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  12. It is amazing how far we’ve come with the internet and phones in a short time. It is terrific and so fun to meet others from around the globe. It has also become something to be tamed, when it consumes too much of my life. Now the trick is finding balance between living my life and viewing my life on a screen. Nice to see Grammie Dee on Donna’s blog.

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  14. Dee, it is great “seeing” you on Donna’s guest series. You were one of the first bloggers to help me get connected with the blogging community. I so appreciate that.

    I also remember sending letters and then waiting impatiently for the recipient to receive the letter, write back, and have the response make it back to me. I still send the occasional card through the postal service, but can’t remember the last time I wrote a letter. It’s a little sad to lose the personal touch of seeing that person’s handwriting. One thing I do not miss at all–that frustrating busy signal on the telephone with no way to leave a message!

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  15. So good to have a look where we came from Dee. My mom had a pen pal and her pen pal’s brother became my father. We also had party lines when we lived in the country. Then we shifted into town where there was one phone booth. Later we were the first house in the area to have the phone connected. Now with the Internet and mobile phones everywhere – wow, how did we cope back then 🙂
    Kathleen

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    2. WOW! What a great pen pal connection Kathleen! Yes, with all the modern technology we have now, our grandbabies think we lived back in the olden days. My grandson even asked me did we have cars when I was a child. I told him I wasn’t THAT old 🙂

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  16. We are indeed enjoying a wonderful time of life when we speak of connecting with people from all walks of life and from all over the world. When I was a teen, I had pen pals as well. Although my pen pals were all stateside, we were from different states. I thought that was an interesting time, but the web is something else all together. Thank you for sharing with The Blogging Grandmothers. I have shared your article. #BloggingGrandmothersLinkParty

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    1. Thanks, Clarissa – I greatly appreciate you dropping by and commenting. I agree that connecting via the web is unlike any other previous form of communication. It will be interesting to discover where communication evolves to from here!

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  17. There were the days before phones in every house; not so old as rural. I remember going to the neighbors to make a call to extended family, then waiting for the operator to call back with the charges so we could leave the payment. Then came the party line with 2 rings indicating our house. And I remember my grandma’s phone complete with separate mouth & earpiece; she rang up the operator to make a local call! I have a penpal in England with whom I’ve kept in touch for ~50yrs. We first connected through a grade 4 writing assignment. We’ve visited back & forth over the years and recently celebrated our 60th birthdays together in Portugal. We continue to write letters in addition to phone calls & internet communication.

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    1. Hi, Mona – Thank you so much for stopping by and commenting. That is so cool that you and your fourth grade penpal have kept in touch all of these years. I also had a penpal in fourth grade, but unfortunately we lost touch years ago. Here’s to Kelly Avery (from Windsor, Ontario), wherever she may be!

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  18. My best friend moved to another town when I was 10, and we wrote frequent letters to each other until we finally got back together as roommates in residence at university years later. There was nothing quite as exciting as receiving a big fat letter in the mail, addressed in purple felt pen!

    Jude

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