Trying To Communicate, Kinda

I HAVE A SIXTY FIVE YEAR OLD friend who uses an old fashioned flip up cell phone, the sort that was popular ten or fifteen years ago. He doesn't know what a blog is, nor the cloud, nor WiFi. My kinda guy. He doesn't glue his phone to his hand, like "smart" phone users invariably do, so, at home, he says he often has to listen hard and scramble to find the little machine, buried beneath laundry or couch cushions or wherever, in time to answer it. Another old fashioned trait; he thinks he has to actually try to answer his phone. He, like I, is slowly discovering that nobody but nobody answers telephones anymore. The mysterious black box in on the table in the corner towards which we all used to madly scramble is now a small rectangle oozing information about everything, including the current caller. Why answer the phone? Let it take a message, return the call when you damned well feel like it, if you ever do. One day recently, he said, his forty three year old daughter called him, but hung up just as he found the phone and picked it up. He immediately called her back, being a doting daddy. There was no answer! In ten seconds, she had vanished. When she finally called him back several minutes later, he gave her what for,, a hard time, aka "hell". Daddy's prerogative. She casually explained that she "screens" all her calls; doesn't everyone? Well, no. not everyone. At some point, somebody actually has to pick up the live grenade, and see what happens, doesn't someone? Well, no, maybe not. We live in a world of left messages and texts. Real communication is no longer necessary, nor barely possible, assuming "real communication" is defined as two parties having a conversation. Its amazing hoe many people tall me "I tried to text you" without bothering to find out whether I indulge in that particular form of "communication." I always tell 'em: Oh yeah? Well, you just keep on tryin'...