Oct 4

A first world tragedy occurred today.

Cell phone down. Not just one, but two cell phones went for a swim in the lake. Too bad phones don’t swim.

I started the day with a plan, a plan to go fishing. I was going to go on my motorcycle to the dock and then fish my way to Westbank and pick up my girls and her friends and family. The girls whined, they didn’t want to go on the lake. They didn’t feel like it, they wanted to stay home.

My daughter’s friend’s mom and I talked it over. We wanted the kids off their devices and in nature; we wanted to take advantage of one of the last nice days to get on the lake. With some convincing and cajoling, we managed to get them to agree. I knew that if I wanted my daughter to come I needed to stay behind and help my wife. Instead of fishing, my morning consisted of chores. Life works that way sometimes and I let go of my search for a lake lunker. I stayed and got my girl motivated for boating. I sighed inside, how sad is it to push someone into boating?

Unfortunately, the weather wasn’t as nice as the forecast said. We went anyway, thoughts of canceling erased by the fact we pushed so hard to get the kids to come in the first place. Getting teenagers to join us, parents, in any activity is an accomplishment. One we didn’t want to let go of.

The kids jumped aboard our vessel and sat at the back of the boat. Despite the cool breeze they seemed to be enjoying the time on the water. An hour into our cruise the kids were having fun connecting, no device in sight.

The back seats of Serendipity recline electrically. My daughter and one of her friends were on one seat and the other friend sat across from them on the other. They started to recline the seats playing innocently with the cool technology of my Campion Biltmore.

That’s when it happened.

It was a look of abject terror on Kennedy’s face that alerted me that something was wrong. The seat was fully reclined and the girls were frantically looking beside the seat and under it.

They had placed their phones on the seat in a place that looked safe. Until the seat is reclined…

In the down position the seat is wide open to the lake; wide open to swallow up unsuspecting phones. I felt my stomach sink. I saw the kids almost cry. The cell phones, their pictures, and all the other stuff they had on them were now resting on the bottom of Okanagan Lake.

Gone forever.

This was a first world tragedy that is new in the last ten or fifteen years. When I was a teenager the most expensive item my parents would let me have was my hand-held football game. Now our kids have thousand dollar devices in the palm of their hand that have an unseen grip upon them.

When the phones disappeared into the depths of Okanagan Lake it became clear how much this new technology has a grip on all of us. How would I live without my phone? I felt like it was a disaster that the kids are without a phone. Yet when I grew up we were quite capable of surviving by using our friends’ home phones, and just being where we said we would be. We also had no problem connecting with friends just by stopping at their houses to see if they could come out and play.

Now play is done on a technological device that fits in the palm of our hands. The need for a new device has overridden most other things my daughter wants. I think it may be a little while before we replace it. I am sure she will survive.

Life has its way of teaching us lessons. I hope my amazing teenage daughter will learn from this one.