About ten years ago, I was talking on the phone as I scurried down the hall to my class.
When I entered, one student wondered, aloud, how I survived with such a “primitive” device: a flip-phone.
Mind you, neither he nor any of his classmates was wealthy, at least to my knowledge. But I was a couple of years away from having any desire, let alone seeing any need, for a “smart” phone.
Now I’ll confess that before my July trip to Japan, I “upgraded” to an iPhone 16 from the iPhone 8 I’d been using for seven years. I really wanted to stick with 8 because it was familiar, but the software wouldn’t update anymore, the battery took forever to charge and the charge didn’t last. Turns out that changing the battery would’ve cost more than getting a new phone, at least with the surprisingly generous trade-in allowance I got from Verizon.
Anyway, I thought about my old student when I got my new phone. And I wonder what he would think, if he were a cyclist, of some of the bikes I’ve ridden—and still ride.
