"Unplugging" at the TP

By Ted Tyler

How do we balance the modern* demands for more or less constant contact with the work world – with the reasonable interests of those to whom the nearby use (while on vacation) of a cell phone, Blackberry or even laptop is anathema? Following the Golden Rule principle of the T.P., clearly the former should not take place within the hearing of the latter. Ideally, it shouldn’t occur within eyesight, either, because we have all become so conditioned to feeling guilty if we’re not catching up our work – or doing something useful for our children – that even just seeing someone else on one of these electronic devices is a downer.

The T.P. really doesn’t want to add to this guilt – or drive still more guests to a computer – by creating some sort of a computer work area found in so many establishments. We are quite successful in keeping the kids happily divorced all week from TV’s and electronic devices – why not their parents? However (in spite of our rural location – and all the big trees that block signals), we have increased the number of locations where there is wireless access, and we respectfully ask guests (where possible) who communicate electronically to do so from their accommodations.

*It wasn’t always this way. Forty years ago (heck, in most cases ten years ago) a vacation was sacred and not to be interrupted by anything or anyone. (The Tyler Place assisted this principle – and still does – by choosing to omit telephones and TV’s from all its accommodations.) What a downside the electronic revolution hath wrought! Instantaneous communication in quantity unlimited by cost of transmission has somehow kept us all hitched to the plow, if I might be allowed a ruralism appropriate to our fair state. Why no insurrection has occurred against what this has done to peoples’ lives is a mystery to me.

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