The Minnesota Farm Woman

I used to think that I was just an old-fashioned type of girl, but using the age-old woman’s prerogative, I have changed my mind.  Modern technology is simply amazing.   From my telephone, I can watch digitally restored old television shows and movies, play a game, or read a book. An entire library is literally at my fingertips.  All of this is done without plugging and unplugging or dragging a cord behind me.   Telephones were among the first electronic things to go  wireless. These days they are not only wireless, they have GPS systems in which a parent can just push a button and find out where their children are at all times.  I grew up in small-town Minnesota, where we played outside no matter what the season.  We thought that the cartoon character Dick Tracy had a very cool telephone on his wrist, but we never dreamed that in our lifetime there would be phones small enough to fit in our pockets.  My pockets were usually filled with jacknives, rocks, and artifacts anyway, and there wouldn’t have been much room for a phone.  Instead of dialing telephone numbers to reach us, our mothers hollered out the back door. No GPS was needed.  Once the mom hollered, the news would be passed around from yard to yard and street to street simply by word of mouth.  “Your mom is calling you!”  “You’d better get home, she sounds mad!”  would be heard throughout the neighborhood, especially around dinner time.  Pity the poor child whose mom actually had to come out and look for him!  I was always a little disappointed because our family ate at 5:00 p.m., which meant that I lost out on an extra hour of fun that the 6:00 p.m. eaters got to enjoy.  I also had a mom who believed her children should actually help with the dishes after dinner.  She washed while we dried and put them away.  I thought it totally unfair that I couldn’t eat and run back outside before the next group got called in for dinner.  As I grew from child to teenager, Mom developed a sixth sense and always seemed to find out if I was not where I was supposed to be or didn’t go where I said I was going.  I don’t know if I blinked or I twitched or just plain  looked guilty, but she could smell a fib a mile away.  Sometimes she would use the “surprise” method of interrogation and ask me how I liked the movie, knowing full well that I had sneaked into the “R” rated movie with my friends the night before, where we sat in the back row, hunched down and giggling and tossing popcorn at one another.   And honestly,  how the heck did she find out that we stood on our tiptoes and tried to look into the VFW window to see just what went on in there?  Yes, I think she probably would have liked to have GPS in those days, with two spirited daughters to keep track of, but I think she did just fine using her own radar, because not much got past her.  I raised my own daughter with the same eagle eye because…well, just because.  I must confess that I didn’t show her my own high school yearbook until she was ready to graduate because underneath my senior picture there is a quote that says:   “I always tell my mother where I’m going and sometimes I go there.”  I didn’t want to give her any ideas.