Address books

The hardest thing about getting old is, my address book.  I used to write all my addresses in ink...what did I know, I was young.  First, girlfriends got married and their names changed. Then, I realized people moved, a lot, and my address book became a bunch of scratch-overs and white-outs.  It was ridiculous.  When I got married which caused a whole new bunch of addresses to appear in my book. This caused me to buy a whole new address book and start over from scratch.  The book looked great for a couple of years. Then scratch-overs...white-outs began to appear on some of the pages.

Then, I had one of those Ah-ha moments. I bought a new book,  and I switched from using ink to make entries to using a pencil. Wow, was I smart or what?  This actually worked well for quite some time. However, I discovered some folks moved more often than others, and some pages got worn so thin, I had to add strips of tape to the backs of some pages to keep from erasing holes in them.

I tried not to let my messy address book bother me, but after a while I got lazy, and every time somebody sent me a new address, I would rip it from the back of the envelope and shove the little slips of paper into the back of my book.  When the slips of paper reached about twenty, I bought myself a new book and in excellent penmanship, and with #2 pencil transferred the addresses from the slips of paper into the book.

I think it had flowers, or maybe butterflies on it.  Boy, was I a happy camper.

Then, something happened...I got old, and I began to get clippings from newspapers about folks I'd known most of my life...they were obituaries, funeral notices, and messages about memorial/graveside services. As a result, names and addresses began to disappear from my address book...permanently.  Erase, Erase, Erase.

A few years back I had another idea, and I bought a new book; again neatly adding all my active addresses. Since I was still getting snail-mail (not so much any more) I decided to go back to the plan of simply using the addresses that came attached to envelopes.  (By now everybody was using 'stick on' address labels.)  As I got mail I would neatly cut the label off the envelop, and simply tape them in front of my hand written entry. Whoa, buddy!  At the same time, rather than trying to erase those entries needing permanent removal, I simply applied a gigantic X across it.

This system worked quite well, and I still have the address book, but seldom use it any more.  But, there is one flaw to my creation.  After a while, ripping out the address labels caused the tape to either pile up, or rip the page. I probably should consider getting a new book.  Then again, maybe not.  After all, my list of friends is getting smaller, and people are still on the move.

Today there's a much better alternative.

My computer.  Yep, good old computer.  Most of my physical address book is already there, it really wouldn't take much time or effort to add the balance of the book.  Plus, when another friend makes that permanent departure, a simple touch of the delete, delete, delete tab will keep my electronic book neat, clean and up to date.

Way to go electronic gadget.  Oh, and thank you.