Mr. Postman Partyline

This is my first ever blog. I have been planning to do this for a long time but laziness always prevails. Had been doing some "blogging" via our high school egroup and that's it. Mostly narrative accounts of our activities here. No heavy stuff really. Had been doing it for almost three (3) years now. I would get some positive reactions from my classmates after each post. Must have motivated me to do this.

My father works abroad since I was 2 years old. It was during those times when cell phones were science fiction and the landline number is 5 digits long. Overseas calls were operator assisted with the option to receive or refuse a collect call. Having a telephone line is a status symbol during those days. There are no textmates but we have phone pals, no emails but snail mail. The postman becomes part of your family because of his constant deliveries. Overseas calls have to be scheduled in advance via telegram and I can still recall how everyone would sit by the telephone, silently waiting for its analog ringing tone on the appointed time and date. Oh, one has to be friendly with the partyline too. Partylines is a very common thing during the early days of PLDT, I'm not sure if I can describe it correctly but I guess it's having someone share the same phone line but with a different phone number. To give you younglings an idea what it is, picture this: If you are trying to call your girlfriend and your girlfriends partyline is using their phone you'll get a busy signal. Or it can be the otherway around. The most annoying thing about partyline is they can listen to your conversations. So you have to learn how to live with partylines during those days. (I was pretty young then...hehehe).

Anyway, my dad is oftentimes away for a year straight, sometimes two years straight depending on his contract. He would leave me in my diapers and return to see me pee on my own. Until I was able to learn to read and write, my mom encouraged me to write letters for him to read something when they dock. The more letters you send the more chances of having a lot of toys and surprises when he comes home. That's where this writing thing comes in. For over 10 years we communicated that way until the advent of the email and text messaging. It's a different form of communication text messaging, although very convenient but the art of letter writing seems lost in the sense that nowadays you can send an email and get a response on the same day, even on the same hour for that matter. The anxiety, nervousness and excitement of receiving a reply has disappeared in this modern day culture. Perhaps no one notices this but such a simple thing changes people. I mean, romanticism is dwindling because everything is instantaneous nowadays. Imagination and anticipation is changed...

Gee, this is getting nowhere...hehehe. Don't get me wrong though, i love using my cell phone and i certainly love my laptop.