Remember back in the good old days when, as a child, if you got bored you might sit down with a good book? Or if you were going to be in a car for a long time, you might bring a book with you? I don't believe that happens anymore. There are too many techno gadgets available to occupy one's time, so why read a book? Maybe deep down inside that's my reason for giving books to our nephews and nieces as gifts. I want them to be aware of what a book is, because they might be extinct some day. (Books, not nephews and nieces.)

This past summer our niece Tiffany and her friend Ashley spent a few days at our house and when it came time to drive them home I asked if they wanted the radio on. Tiffany quickly (almost too quickly) said, "No, that's okay." Silly girl, she probably didn't know that I knew how to find their kind of music on the radio; that I don't always have to listen to that "radio station for grownups."

I had to make one quick stop along the way, and when I got back in the car, Tiffany had earphones on which were hooked up to an I-pod or some other contraption. (I'm starting to sound like an old fuddy-duddy, aren't I?) Ashley was in the back seat with a portable DVD player, watching a movie. Hmmm, not a book in sight.

You know what that meant, don't you? That meant that I could listen to my kind of music and didn't have to care about what they were doing, much less try to carry on a conversation with them! Life was good.

Another time when Tiffany was visiting us, we were playing cards and her cell phone went off. She looked at it and said, "It's just mom texting me," and continued to play cards. After awhile she did grab the phone and punch some stuff into it. Sure enough, a few minutes later the same thing happened, and this continued on throughout the evening. I don't know what was more annoying - the continual ringing of her phone or the fact that she could communicate with someone right in front of us, with us not having a clue as to what she was saying. She did say she wasn't talking about us, but how were we to know?

But, back to books. I've been told that you can display pages of a book on your computer screen and read it that way. To that I say, eeewwwww. How does one snuggle up with a good book on a computer? Give me a rainy day, a good book and a comfortable chair any day.

You can reach Mary Bruemmer by e-mail at mary .bruemmer@pineriverjournal.com