How did they do it before?

"How did you do it before?" he asked me after the blackout. Because without a cell phone, we couldn't find each other, all of us in Barcelona, ​​each of us busy. Before, we would have told each other how we were supposed to meet, and we would also know what to do in case of an emergency, because we would have told each other. We would have told each other the exact time to meet, with no time limit, no possibility of a last-minute message with an "I'll be there in ten minutes."

How did we do it before? We had transistor radios. Grandpa used to hang them from a tree branch when he was digging the garden. The battery compartment had broken—they all broke—and he kept them in place with black electrical tape. With the antenna extended, we looked for the best orientation. While we harvested hazelnuts to pay for the books and CDs we would buy—what a luxury—we listened to the soap opera: Bodies and souls, the favorite of the farmers who had rented our radio and harvested with us. This time, as always, we needed the radio. Excited, I watched as all kinds of people, young techies, suddenly turned off, flocked to Catalunya Ràdio to listen to the news. It was when the radio operators—I love this word—decided to "take" the program live outside the country, and it's an image I'll never forget. How did they do it before? We had cassettes in the car. The device was removable, to prevent theft, and when someone went out to dinner or to a disco, they would take it with them in their hand.

How did they do it before? We had candles and small stoves, just in case, and when there was a day like that, of doing nothing because nothing could be done, we went out to the street to talk to the neighbors. This is the only thing, on the day of the blackout, that I can say I did. Going out for wine with the neighbors, looking up at the sky, talking, with the stars brighter than ever, due to the lack of light. No messages.