Communicating:  Then and Now

“What we have here is a failure to communicate.”  Some of life’s best advice comes from movies like Cool Hand Luke. 
I am in the communication business, but I am having a harder time understanding what people are saying to me and I don’t know if it’s my hearing or I am just getting dumber because I am watching too much TV.
One of the benefits of writing a newspaper column is that I get fan mail once in a while. Occasionally, some of it is actually nice. 
You have to be pretty thick-skinned to be a writer, since everybody is always watching for grammer and speling mistakes and now days people are fact checking what you write. 
Like I am ever going to let facts get in the way of a good story.  Hell, I invented fake news about the time Al Gore invented the internet. 
Bubba dropped me a line the other day…
“Deer CaveGuy: We bin reading yer colmm these last few munts and I kin see that yer just as ignert as always.  I didn’t laugh at yer article about bull riders.  It warnt funny.  If I thot you wuz in yer rat mind I come up thar and kick yer Behind.  I wuz all far’d up to come down thar and kick yer Behind but momma sed I cudn’t becuz ‘life was like a box of chocolates and that yu wuz a nut in a box of mints.’ 
“Besides, since dad retard at age 65 he needs me around to help with fixin the bob-war fence and such.  And, mom’s stayshun wagun had a flat tar the other day and thatz all I git to drive. 
“I tryd to clene it up sum fer momma but it wuz dirtiur than our farm truk witch smells like a pig pen since that squeeler got lose and pooped in the back.  I put a smellee air freshunur in it butt it makes momma sneeze.  We did just bought one-of-dem farn trucks from Japan and it werks reel good, it doesn’t even burn any ol’ like the ol’ truck. 
“You still have that cushy gummit job with the BLM?  Put in a guud word fer me if they nede a new hand to help right their plan for Bares Ears, you know I pretty much poached that hole area and know all the best spots fer fishin two. 
Yer cuzn Bubba.
You know that texting was invented some 25 years ago back before unlimited text and talk plans were available?  Back then you were limited to 160 characters per message and there were no emojis. 
Now, there are nearly 8 trillion texts sent globally every year.  And I am doing my best to stay up with technology and have even traded in my flip phone.
To this point in my life, I thought Bubba was hard to understand but recently, my grandson, we will call him Dean to protect his identity, sent me a text the other day and I am still trying to figure out just what he wanted.
“Gramps, do u DM IDK if u do IMO u should cuz IRL you got to…JK but really dude LMK so I can reach you.  But if you don’t NBD I mean NP, probably NVM its just that ICYMI your letters take forever and they are long TL;DR.  I can’t believe you still write letters I am ROFL and SMH but TBH I am NGL I do like to get them.  But TBF when you write about your dietary disorders TMI!!!!  TTYL dude and remember YOLO so lets hang out soon…. G2G…luv ya D

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