There were a few things going on last Monday night that I could try and get to.

BE Library Board meeting, Friends of the Library meeting, Wells City Council meeting, BEA School Board meeting, Fair Board meeting, a basketball game and a special guest speaker at the Blue Earth Area High School.

I made it to some of those, but had to miss some of them too.

With one of our reporters out sick and the other having their own things to go to Monday night, it was up to me to go get a few photos of that guest speaker at the BEA High School.

You could say I drew the short straw. Except that, as it turned out, it was a lucky short straw.

I had planned to get a few photos of the speaker after some of the meetings I was going to, and before I went to the last one of the night.

However, I ended up staying and listening to what the speaker, Joe Beckman, had to say.

To be honest, I was prepared to be underwhelmed. There had been a lot of hype about him, for one thing, and it’s always tough to live up to the hype. I have heard a lot of “motivational” speakers in my many years of being an editor, and some are pretty full of tired old catch phrases and full of themselves.

And third, I figured he was probably good at speaking to kids, but maybe not so much with old adults, like me.

Turns out I was wrong. Joe was good. I wish you could have been there to hear him. Or maybe you were.

Joe was certainly not full of himself; instead, he constantly said he was not an expert on parenting or anything else. He was self-deprecating all during his talk.

For instance, he talked about his first time speaking, and how he knew it did not go over well. He said one blue-haired girl who came in late and sat in the back row looked totally bored. However, he saw her after the speech and decided to talk to her one on one, and that was eye opening for both of them. You can see a photo of “Blue-haired Girl” on page 3, in the upper-right corner of the photo spread of Joe speaking.

He spent time explaining how he was just learning to play guitar and was not that good, but he was going to play a song for us. He actually was rather good. The song was ‘Let It Be’ by the Beatles, one of my favorite songs by one of my favorite bands. Don’t judge me, my teenage years were totally spent in the 1960s, so what can I say.

Joe also related his own times as a young, shy kid. He asked where the audience members were in 1987, if they were even alive then. He was a young boy who got to go the Twins Spring Training Camp that year. He tried to get some famous Twins players’ autographs, and the one player who took the time to visit with him was the most famous of all, Kirby Puckett. That is a picture of Joe showing how he asked for the autograph in the lower left corner of the photo spread, with Kirby’s baseball card on the screen behind him, shown here.

Joe’s message was how we have lost our human connection in so many ways, and that we need to find it again. He had me when he talked about how our lives changed, starting in 2007 with the invention of the smart phones, and culminating in 2011 when everyone from kids to old folks owned them.

His message was that while the phones connect us in some ways, we are disconnected from being face-to-face with each other. Texting and being on social media with friends and family just is not the same as spending time with them in person.

That is something I have felt, and fought against, for years. No cell phones at the table, at the meeting, or in the middle of a speech. And for goodness’ sake, if it rings don’t answer it. It is perfectly OK to check it later.

Our need to reconnect with each other was the main focus of his speech. And to do it in person. Listening to others, and helping those who need a helping hand.

I liked it when he said we can’t change the world, but we can make a difference in one person’s life.

I hope Joe Beckman made a difference in some of the kids’ lives he talked to during the day last Monday, and maybe even a few of the adults Monday afternoon and evening.

We could all take a break from our phones and busy lives once in a while and just visit with someone face-to-face and give a helping hand once in a while to someone who needs it.

Were the olden days before cell phones better than today? Maybe, but probably not. A better question might be whether the future will be better than today, because that is something we can actually do something about.