Two Strangers
Sandy Dickson
Anthony was still in his early teens when he entered through an outside archway into a garden where he was instructed to wait on a bench for someone he had only been told would give him a very interesting conversation. It was to be a rare opportunity to meet with someone very special whose identity had not been revealed. He only knew that his science teacher said it would be a very memorable experience. Could it be a celebrity or a widely known politician? He didn’t know.
He waited somewhat nervously. It wasn’t every day he got to be in the presence of a luminary person, which he was fairly sure this person would be, to be touted as so special.
Soon he saw a figure walking down the pathway toward him. As the man drew closer, Anthony was a little surprised that he couldn’t place him. He was handsome and Anthony knew he had seen his picture, but he didn’t want to embarrass himself by asking or admitting he didn’t know who this man was. Of course, no one said the guest would be famous. Anthony had only assumed it by the privilege this experience was supposed to furnish. That’s what his science teacher had said of this encounter.
The man introduced himself as John and the two shook hands. Anthony invited him to have a seat beside him.
“I was going to try to get your email address and email you first, but my AOL went down,” he began. And I didn't know if you were on Facebook."
“Excuse me, but AOL and Facebook?” John asked.
He must be from a foreign country, Anthony decided and patiently explained, “AOL stands for American On Line and Facebook is a registry that joins people with friends of others over the computer until alot of people can communicate with people that know their friends. Of course that's the short explanation.”
With the quizzical look he was receiving, he added, “AOL is my server.”
Totally confused, but not wanting to admit it, John simply smiled and said, “Oh, okay,” thinking this young man must have some domestic help of some sort to have his very own server.
“Of course there’s always my cell phone, but I didn’t really have your number.”
“No, of course you didn’t,” John agreed, unsure what he was talking about regarding a cell phone.
“Do you have a Bluetooth or BlackBerry?” Anthony continued.
“I’m not sure what you mean,” John smiled, trying not to appear too dumb. “But we used to pick blackberries in the summer and my mother made wonderful cobbler with them,” he smiled to recall. “It might have made our teeth appear a little blue, or purple for awhile,” he added.
“You know; a Bluetooth. A phone that you wear on your head.” Anthony offered, now thinking this man was really rather slow or deprived. Maybe special had meant special needs person.
"And a BlackBerry is a phone combined with an information center," Anthony continued. "You can do all kinds of things with it, like store information and appointments, reminders, your personal calendar, etc.”
John was still trying to process the first part of Anthony’s answer.
“A phone you wear on your head?” John said as he began to laugh, conjuring the image. “That would be tricky.”
“Yes, you know, so you can talk while you are walking around anywhere,” Anthony explained.
“Well now, that would come in real handy. I sure could have used one of those in my prime,” John said.
“They are handy, but I text a lot too,” Anthony said. “It’s fast, precise and silent, so you don’t have to be talking and being disruptive in places where it isn’t appropriate, like the movies.”
John tried to hide his confusion. “I’d like to learn a little more about that,” he said.
“Oh, there are lots of places you can learn it. You can even download things off the Internet about it, but they can also show you in the phone stores,” he said cheerfully. He liked John, but decided he wasn’t very with it. What was wrong with him anyway?
John was trying to figure him out too, so he said, “What do you like to do in your spare time, Anthony?”
“Oh, there are lots of things to do. There are always things to watch on cable, but I also watch DVDs, listen to CDs, fool around on my Play Station and Blue Ray or listen to my iPod.
With words like cable, DVDs, CDs, download, and now another blue thing, John said, “Okay, I’m afraid I don’t understand any of those terms. “Let’s start with that last one you mentioned: the iPod.”
Anthony slipped his hand in his pocket and pulled out a slim contraption that was very perplexing to John.
“This is an iPod,” Anthony explained. “I can download songs onto this from iTunes and then play them through this thing. It has small earphones you can listen through too, but you can play it as a radio, though it isn’t as loud as a normal radio. Here, listen to this...”
With that he played a tune he had downloaded.
Fascinated now, John was staring at the iPod. “Now that music is certainly different than what I expected and what I’m used to. How many songs does this tiny thing hold—five maybe?” thinking he was being very generous. John then took it in his hand and rolled it over to examine it.
“No, hundreds. Different iPods have different capacities, but they hold several hours of music. I also like to play video games and sometimes I gather with friends too play with the Wii.”
“The Wii,” John repeated. “What is that,” he said, almost afraid to ask.
“It’s a virtual reality game,” Anthony replied. “Each player has a remote control that serves as the game piece that does all the work for the game you are playing. Like if you are doing the bowling game, you treat the remote like a bowling ball and as you swing your arm back in front of the TV screen, you let go of the button on the remote just when you would let go of the ball. It treats the picture of bowling pins on the screen just like it would if it was a real bowling ball. It knocks down the ones you would have knocked down on a real bowling alley according to the position the remote is in when you let go of the button. You can play tennis, golf; most any sport you want with it. You can even ski without leaving the room you’re in as you watch it. You can probably watch some of this on You Tube.”
As he explained, John had a hard time visualizing and grasping what he meant with all these unusual terms such as virtual reality, downloading, Bluetooth, Blackberry, Blue Ray, email, You Tube and all the rest.
“You Tube,” John repeated. “You got me there, I’m afraid. I think too much time has gone by for me. Lots of things seem to have changed since I was in the working world and I certainly don’t have any need for any of those things now. Do you go to movies?”
“Oh, yes,” Anthony said. I really like movies, but if I miss one I’d like to see, it’s okay because I can watch it on a tape or DVD or I can even record it from TV.”
John, unclear what any of these things were that Anthony spoke about, wasn’t sure where to begin. He thought; so many questions, so little time.
“What did you like to do for entertainment when you were growing up?” Anthony asked.
“Mostly, I spent time outside with my friends. People seem to have gotten away from that now, but there were endless things to do. In the nice weather, I had various ball games to play with friends and there was also a lot of boating. In the winter was ice hockey along with skating, snow skiing and sledding as I was growing up. Most of our activities revolved around being outside but it doesn’t seem that’s the norm anymore. Of course there were movies to go to and dances too,” he added. “But we had no way of recording movies we missed.”
“What do you do now?” Anthony asked.
“Well, I’ve just moved on,” John answered. “And now I must go. I’ve been summoned back, but I enjoyed meeting you.”
“Before you go, I’d like to take a picture of you,” Anthony said. With that, he held up his cell phone, got John centered in the screen when the phone rang. He quickly snapped the button for the photo.
With the distinctive ring tone being one of his favorite songs, Anthony said, “It’s my science teacher.”
“How do you know?” John asked. “You haven’t even answered it yet. And is that little thing your phone and your camera?”
“Yes, my cell phone takes pictures and I know by the ring tone who’s calling me. You can set different ring tones for phone calls from different people, but I could also tell by the caller ID. The caller’s name appears on the screen. Don’t worry, I can call him back.”
“Do you have his number in your head?” John smiled. “That’s one thing I never thought to do—memorize the phone number of a teacher.”
“No, I don’t have to. The caller’s name comes up on the caller I.D, but I have also set distinctive ring tones for certain callers, so when the phone rings, I know who it is just by the sound. I knew he was going to call me and I was expecting it. We’ve been communicating about our special project. But any caller can also record a message if he wants to and you can listen to it whenever you want. I can also call the person back just by telling the phone to dial the last number that called. See? Watch this.”
With that, he hit the return call button and the teacher answered the phone at the other end.
The teacher said, “It’s time for you to come back now, Anthony. Just exit through the same gate. How did you enjoy the visit with your guest? I will want you to write a paper on it, you know.”
Anthony turned to smile at John, but John was no where to be seen.
“He was a little weird. He was nice enough, but he didn’t have a clue what I was talking about,” he said. "It didn’t seem he understood anything I said. "That’s because he was from a different time, but not that far back. Only about 50 years. That’s what this time travel class is all about—to give you a chance to relate with someone who lived in a different era. He died in 1963.”
“I’m glad I got a picture of him. Who was it?” Anthony asked as he scanned his phone to view the picture. There was nothing there.
“The 36th President of the