Like it was 1996

Yesterday I forgot my cell phone at home.

If it was a normal day, one spent at the desk working on my computer next to a phone it would not have been a big deal.

But yesterday was not a normal day. Yesterday I got to watch, after a few years of my work and literally decades of other people's efforts, a bill get to the last stage of becoming a law. And I couldn't instantly tell people outside the State House about the progress.

The funny thing is that my counterpart from a sister organization didn't have his phone either. He forgot to charge it.

So we ran back and forth between the House and the Senate chambers to watch the different proceedings. While waiting to hear about the bill we talked, because we couldn't text or surf the web. It reminded me of how the State House was before the Internet, cell phones and texting.

You sat around with colleagues, watching history be made, and really talked. About people, the weather, upcoming efforts, gossip and jokes.

And I found myself missing 1996.