Robert Skydell
I became a gardener one fine spring day in 1961. I was sitting in Miss Cherry’s first grade class.
A few weeks ago my business was robbed. As a seasoned business owner for over 35 years, believe me, I’ve had to face a lot worse.
Donnie used to think of himself as something of a curmudgeon and I wasn’t about to argue the point with him, but somewhere along the way I figured out that it was just a ruse.
Now that everyone has become completely dependent on GPS, it’s possible to locate ourselves to an astounding degree of accuracy anywhere on the planet — while simultaneously becoming completely and utterly lost. I am talking hopelessly, pathetically lost. This was never possible even a short while ago when most folks still knew how to read a map, trust their instincts and listen to spoken directions. But in the last few years, as gadgetry has gotten smarter people, seem to have gotten dumber. There’s just no getting around it.
Ometepe is as unlikely a place as you could ever imagine to catch a glimpse of the future. Although unique in the world, an island composed of two volcanoes in the midst of Nicaragua’s freshwater Lake Cocibolca, it is mostly a quiet backwater, both off the grid and the beaten path as well.
By the time 1962 finally rolled around I was sitting in the front row of Mrs. Grady’s class learning the proper way to address a business letter. I had already learned left from right, could tell time, tie my own shoes and best of all, I could read.
Now we were practicing the precise manner in which one conducted a correspondence. I wasn’t sure why we were learning how to write a business letter in the third grade but the prescribed salutation remains etched in my brain: “Dear Sir or Madam.”