AS A LITTLE KID, I WONDERED how the sound traveled from wherever the guy was who was talking all the way into my radio. Telephones were obvious: the voices came through those wires stretched all over the place from telephone pole to telephone pole. Then we got television sets and I was perplexed again. “If Milton Berle is in New York,” I asked, “and we’re down here in Miami, how does it get to our TV?” It comes through the wires, my Mom said, just like the radio and the telephone. That’s why you have to plug it in, she told me. Well, I accepted that, until portable radios hit the market. This is crazy, I cried. There’re no wires. So my Mom says, don’t ask me, how would I know? Ask your father. Then my father says, hey, I’m a butcher, not an engineer. Maybe it’s in the batteries somehow. Eventually I grew out of my “how does it work?” stage and stopped wondering about such niceties. But then I had to deal with the computer phenomenon, which itself got more magical every year. They got more powerful, they got cheaper, and they got smaller. Then, holy shit, they merged with phones, and people carry them around in their pockets wherever they go. That old “it comes through the wires” explanation didn’t hold up any more. I had to agree with Ogden Nash: “Progress might have been all right once, but it has gone on too long.”
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Every year, on the first weekend in October, is a time for connection, inspiration, and reflection for the ostomy community. Whether virtually or in person, we hope you join in for Ostomy Awareness Day on October 7, 2023.