Left to my own devices

W e moved from the house -- mom, dad and I -- in Spring of 1986, so this would have been around Christmas of 1983, 1984, or 1985, no later than that. I was standing on the front porch of our home on Draper St., the first home I'd ever known, with a couple of friends. I think one of them was Lyle? Maybe? I don't know. There were a couple of friends present. They'd come over earlier, and we'd just finished playing for the day. We were on the porch, doing that midwestern small talk before saying goodbye, and somehow, perhaps because it was in the offing, the subject of Christmas came up.

"Hello, how are you? Have you been alright Through all those lonely, lonely, lonely, lonely nights?" - Telephone Line ,  ELO T here was a time when I used to love talking on the phone. This was before the ubiquity of the Internet, before cell phones, texting, video calls, etc. It was also before I had a job, and much of the work I've ended up doing over the years has fallen under the designation of customer service, where I would interact with folks either in-person or over the phone. That can wear down one's capacity for certain types of contact methods during off-hours. This was before all of that. This was when I was a bright-eyed and bushy-tailed young person.