The Curmudgeonly Professor

From the Tulip Gardens at Thanksgiving Point Posted May 19 2013

Pink Tulips from the Tulip Gardens at Thanksgiving Point Posted May 16 2013

White Poppy from Thanksgiving Point Gardens

From the Tulip Gardens at Thanksgiving Point Lehi UT Posted May 16 2013

The Tulips at Thanksgiving Point near Lehi UT May 14 2013

My daughter in law kindly volunteered to take me to the gardens at Thanksgiving Point yesterday.  The tulips were about 10 days past their prime, but I found enough color to make the trip worthwhile.  Workers are in the process of pulling the tulips to make way for the planting of thousands of annual flowers.  We found some leaners, some stragglers, and quite a few survivors awaiting their demise.  But I have never seen a tulip of any color or condition that I did not like.  More tulip pictures to come.

Thanksgiving Point blossoms 2009

The Main Entry from the Entrance Building at Thanksgiving Point Gardens Lehi UT 2009

 

 

The Secret Garden at Thanksgiving Point: From the Archives 2009

Hollyhocks and Sunflowers: Thanksgiving Point Lehi UT 2010

The Green Fairway South of the Main Building at Thanksgiving Point Lehi UT 2009

In the Hidden Garden at Thanksgiving Point Lehi UT 2009

First eMail killed the Post Office; Now iPhones and iPads Have Killed Conversation

When I first went to college in January of 1950, 450 miles away from my home in northwest Wyoming, I wrote a letter home to tell them I got to Laramie safely.  We had no phone at home.  The letter arrived four or five days later.  I have boxes of handwritten letters from my mother and from various family members that are treasured keepsakes.  Now all we get is emails.  Quick and convenient, we can let everyone know each detail of our lives and never have to write a thoughtful letter or message again.  Meanwhile, the US Postal Service is dying, raising postage and cutting service, both of which will merely exacerbate the financial plight of the Post Office.  We can print out emails from family members, but a file of printed emails is as sterile as the ads in the Sunday newspapers.  eCards have replaced the need to send a greeting card with a handwritten message, address an envelope, put a stamp on it, and take it to the post office mail box.

Now every time people get together, many of them pull out an iPhone, an iPad, or any of an assortment of electronic devices.  Instead of talking to each other, they all are thumbing away, plinking away on text messages, reading trivia, playing games, and anything else to avoid talking to others in the room.  Texting has become a road hazard as well as a communications hazard.  Watching people driving almost universally produces a large number of people driving big SUVs and vans with one small hand and yapping on a cell phone or texting with the other.  All of this so we don't miss a single second of everyone's boring lives and so we can share our most trivial details with the world.  Has the world of electronic instant connectivity become so pervasive that we no longer either feel the need to talk to each other or no longer have the skills to do so?  Soon two year olds will be given iPads and iPhones to communicate with their parents.  No one learns how to write any more.  All kids know how to do now (and many adults) is punch their thumbs quickly on often inane messages.  Parker Penmanship skills?  A skill from the Middle Ages.  Kindergarten children will likely be confused if they are required to talk to each other.

Personally, I treasure my handwritten letters and I mourn for the loss of these wonderful artifacts from our lives.  I would like to talk to people in a group instead of watching them plink plink plink thumb thumb thumb on their electronic devices.  The Post Office may not be the only casualty of the electronic age.  Writing and conversation are not far behind.

Flower Gardens at Thanksgiving Point in Topaz Water Color 2009: Photo from the Archives

 

Photo from the Archives: Flowers at Thanksgiving Point July 2009

 

Secret Garden at Thanksgiving Point: Random Photo from the Archives February 14 2011