The other day our youngest son was home for a couple of days. He brought his laptop computer and was burning a bunch of discs for his mother to watch on her DVD.

All of a sudden he said come here, somebody wants to talk to you two.

Here was Rebecca, a friend of his from nearby London, England, and she was on the computer.

She said in her English accent hello Mr. and Mrs. Gill.

Barry said sit down and look at the light at the top of the computer and she will be able to see you, and you can see her while talking to each other.

We told her we were eating a cinnamon roll while drinking our morning coffee.

Rebecca said, I sure would love one of those cinnamon rolls myself.

Peg said, sorry, we can’t give you one, but wish we could.

Rebecca said that her two little girls also wanted to talk to us.

Elizabeth is 4 years old, and her little sister Felicity is 2.

She is called Flizzy Whizzy by here folks, but our son calls her Fuzzy Wuzzy.

These were two cute little blonde girls.

Then their mother started using special effects on the screen, like putting elf ears on the little girl’s head and wolf faces and bubbles floating all over.

She did other things I can’t remember, but quite clever what one can do on a computer.

Rebecca is the wife of a pastor in a church there.

Boy, this old 80-year-old man never thought he would be able to sit in his home in Dowagiac and talk to someone that far away.

I’m sure I’m missing a great lot by not having a computer, but old Charlie is one heck of a die-hard person for greater or worse.

Here is something from an article in 1960. Michigan pheasant hunters reaped a harvest of slightly more than 1 million birds this past season.

Ringneck kill dropped below 1 million in 1959.

Records indicate this fall’s take was only 5 percent below the average for the past five years.

I can’t remember seeing a live one of these birds in a long time. I can recall lots of times in years past, when one would fly across from one field to another. I even hit one with my car years ago.

Dowagiac Daily News classified ad, 1923: A 1915 Ford touring car, good tires, mechanical condition good. Price, $50.

I’ll take it.

“Cardinal Charlie” Gill writes a nostalgic weekly column about growing up in the Grand Old City. E-mail him at cardinalcharlie@hotmail.com.