On Monday I received a number of calls on my cell phone from a number which I did not recognize and which the phone did not identify. As a practice, I normally do not respond to a number which is not in my phone's address book.

However, the number kept calling and in deference to the callers's persistence and my curiosity I finally answered.

I was rewarded by hearing a man say that my voicemail box was full and asking if I recognized his voice. I did not and there was an awkward silence until the caller identified himself as a friend from my boyhood who I had not spoken to in at least 40 years.

Once we got past all of this we caught up and it was nice, but things were far more simple 40 years ago.