We recently got together with some old friends. And by “old” friends I mean some long time friends from long ago, and yes, also that we are all pretty darn old.

It is a diverse group of about 10 couples who do, or once did, live in the same small town. Many of us are former business owners, a couple are former teachers and there is one farmer in the group. And yes, I realize farmers can be the biggest business owners of all.

We call ourselves the News Years Eve group, because we used to get together each New Years Eve at one of our homes. I am not sure how that started or why it was this particular group of people. We were all Lions Club members but I don’t think that was the reason why it was this particular bunch.

But we became a pretty tight group. We did quite a few things together. Then, we sort of went our separate ways.

It was nice to get together again. One or two could not make it. Several have died. A couple of the men have new wives. That is all part of life, and things are going to always change.

In typical fashion we gathered as couples at first, greeting and hugging and all chatting at once. And then the men splintered off into their own group, the women in their group. That is, after all, the Minnesota way.

The “boys” as the ladies call us, although we range in age from 72 to 82, talked about sports, politics and lamented that things seem to be in disarray in the country and this world, to put it mildly. The women talk about, well, I don’t really know for sure.

The men also talk about the way things used to be, and we recall many of the things we were involved in when we all lived in that same town. We made some great improvements in the town, but we also had some fun and did some humorous plays, for example.

We owned the town. Not just figuratively, but we owned quite a few businesses and we were all on nearly every board, committee and organization in town. One was mayor for some years, several of us were on the city council.

We did talk a lot about the good old days. And how kids and especially grand kids, don’t have those memories.

When we grew up we remember getting our first TV, or at least our first color TV. And there was just one in the house. One guy recalled his first TV and it was black and white and very small and that was what the whole family watched together. Now everyone has multiple TVs in the house, almost one in every room, even one out on the patio in the back yard and some of them are 82-inches across.

And we had rotary dial phones, only one per household and shared a party line.

No cell phones, computers, iPads, smart watches, well, you get the idea. We got along just fine without those things.

We talked about social media, and how it consumes a lot of time for people now days. And how it can be vicious, too.

Granted, this was a bunch of old guys talking. Our grandkids might say, “Oh Grandpa,” if we would bring any of this up, and then they would smile. Just an old codger talking about the past.

I don’t think they can imagine a life without their own cell phone. Or computer. Or big screen TV. Although I do see more and more younger people not quite as consumed by social media as they once were.

Don’t get me wrong, these things are pretty great. I remember my first cell phone back in the day. It was a bag phone. Or my first computer. It only had 25 megabytes of memory. My first fax machine. My first VCR. My first email account through CompuServe – my email address was a long number and not a name.

Back then I never even thought every person would have a cell phone and every person would have a computer or tablet or an email account. Or every room would have a TV.

Personally, I love to take a break once in a while from all these electronics. Usually that is by going camping.

This wanting a break from electronics and social media seemed to be a common feeling of my old friends I was visiting with the other day. They were not really into Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and all the other things people are consumed with today.

These old guys still do a lot of fun things like hunt, fish and golf. And they do offer a lot of advice to their kids and grandkids. Whether they want it or not.

Old guys rule. Just ask one of them and they will tell you they do.