Remembering growing up turning the knobs of an Etch-A-Sketch, standing on a chair to use the phone on the wall, and snapping through Disney story frames in a View-Master, it is a little wild to realize I do most of my job tapping away at a phone about the size of a Pop Tart.

It took some adjusting about half a century ago when Brunswick’s Yankee Lanes went from scorekeeping with yellow grease pencils and projectors to automatic scorers. Handy, but it removed some of the active engagement – both for the brain to do the math, and for participants to take turns using the grease pencils and wiping the scoreboards between strings, aka games.

If you grew up before email and mostly before cable, you may be, as I am, glad so much has gotten much easier and quicker in communication, commerce and more. Except for missing what is no more, like the grease pencils to fill in a strike or spare, we reap technology’s benefits while, most importantly, learning and using safeguards against identity theft and more.

Wiscasset’s town government and school department are both poised to do technological things new to them: Telehealth, as Edna Miller reports this week, is being added to the school department’s services in 2023. And the town has softly opened its TextMyGov service. I signed up without a hitch using the instructions at wiscasset.org. But let us be patient on expectations. Town Manager Dennis Simmons said the town will more fully promote the service after any kinks are found and worked out.

These services could both be pluses, like the hand-held, no chair required phone. Thanks for taking them on, Wiscasset, for all the reasons you are. And may the safeguards be strong and any wrinkles in usage few.

Week’s positive parting thought: At press time, the rain was forecast to exit by Christmas weekend. May that help all get where they are trying to go.