“How did we ever survive without cell phones?” one of my daughters asked not long ago.

Pining for a pre-cellular place in time

How, indeed?

They're indispensable. In an age of instant messaging, instant gratification and instant everything, cell phones seem quite mandatory in knowing where our kids and spouses are every minute of the day. And how else would we find each other inside the endless depths of 130,000-square-foot box stores?

Maybe it's the prospect of another new year upon us, or the frustration that accompanied the task of deciphering my nephews' Christmas wish lists of electronic gadgets, but I feel compelled to document for posterity the way things were when society functioned quite normally without cellular phones, digital cameras, Xbox 360s or iPods.

Back in the prehistoric times of my youth - the 1960s and 70s - we got by without cell phones by simply making a plan and sticking to it.

We lived seven miles from town, but my mother was able to chauffeur four kids in myriad extracurricular activities (we had only one family car) by arranging to pick us up at a designated time, either at the bowling alley or the corner drugstore.

It worked like a charm.

I don't ever remember feeling inconvenienced if we had to wait around a couple of extra hours beyond our after-school escapades. Don't know if I could say the same about today's youth.

We wiled away what seemed like countless hours at the bowling alley, where the other "farm kids" and I carried out group homework sessions at the lunch counter. If we needed to call home, we used the big, black rotary phone on the counter for free. I don't recall the bowling alley even having a pay phone.

At the Rexall drugstore, we'd have a milkshake or pop at the soda fountain and if there was time left over, I'd pace the aisles, memorizing the inventory of the store. I can still close my eyes and recall where the photo albums were, and which shelf housed the aspirin and cold medicine. That's how much time I spent there.

At the risk of my own children rolling their eyes once again, I'll explain our own neighborhood instant-messaging system of bygone days - a party-line telephone. For those too young to remember such a device, it was a single telephone circuit connecting numerous telephone subscribers.

There were about a dozen families on our party line. Old-timers would converse in Norwegian for a measure of privacy, but most of the time, we were privy to every detail of everyone's lives. A few nosy neighbors with nothing better to do would rubberneck for hours, and we knew so because you could hear just the slightest click when someone tapped in.

Most people were conscientious enough to limit calls to a few minutes, but there were a pair of teenagers in love who keep the lines tied up for hours. Mom called them "the breathers" because most of the time, they'd say very little except to declare how much they loved each other, followed by sighs and heavy breathing. The love birds eventually got married, then got divorced. But by that time, we had our own phone line.

It may seem like I'm anti-technology, but truly I'm not. I recognize the benefits of cell phones, and I'm glad my kids can call me on the road to let me know where they are. And I'll admit it's pretty cool to be able to snap a photo with a cell phone and forward it to other cell phones. I also don't know how we survived without e-mail, especially in the news business. It's made life a lot easier.

But for all of the communication features of technology, I'm not sure it's brought us any closer together. Kids and adults gather to play video games and watch TV, but no one really talks much anymore. The art of visiting, sitting down for an afternoon of conversation, seems to have been lost with my parents' generation.

For all of our instant connectedness, life still feels a little more disconnected now than it ever did when I was growing up.

Features editor Lynnette Hintze may be reached at 758-4421 or by e-mail at lhintze@dailyinterlake.com