Recently the Recorder ran a front-page story titled “Dial ‘A’ for anachronism: Landlines languish in US” [Feb. 27]. It left me feeling exposed, outed. You see, I have a landline. I’ve never had a cellphone. The article implied I’m old school, old, an anachronism. It intoned I’m “more a remnant of a time gone by,” a member of a “now-unfathomable era.”

Just days before, I’d actually outed myself. A Wampanoag man and two lawyers from Amherst and Northampton were making a case that arguing “the rights of nature” would be a way to stop the relicensing and massive ecosystem waste and wreckage wrought on the Connecticut River by the Northfield Mountain Pumped Storage Station these last 50 years.

The lawyers led a new group that doesn’t seem to understand there are no natural rights written in statutes of the four states along the Connecticut’s 410-mile run. You can’t use loose thinking at a critical time to protect the river in a now 12-year-old Federal Energy Regulatory Commission license process quickly nearing its final stage.

I wanted people to know there are key protective federal Clean Water Act standards and laws here in Massachusetts dating to 1972. Northfield Mountain didn’t began massively erasing the physical, chemical and biological integrity of New England’s Great River until a year later, 1973.

But my old school “outing” had come earlier in that presentation. The Wampanoag man, Hartmann Deetz, was on stage with a massive video screen feed of him as background — five times his size, when he asked, “Is there anyone here who does not own a cellphone?” Sitting up front, I raised my hand and suddenly found my outsized self projected on a screen that looked like a giant televangelist meeting. I was the odd man out, the sole no-cell soul in an auditorium of 150 people.

Well, guilty as charged. But perhaps imagine a person might not sign up to cell towers as a protest, as a jab back at waning democratic rights. Perhaps see a landline as a thumb in the eye of our ever-tightening state-of-surveillance. Each cell keystroke, purchase, query, call and car ride is now tracked, recorded, retrievable.

My nutty old-school notion is there ought to exist, still, a right to privacy for all — as individuals and communities. I once saw a rare copy of the 1215 Magna Carta in Williamstown. A person’s person, and home, should be inviolate as their “castle.”

Maybe that’s why that dolt in the audience doesn’t have a cellphone. Why help all the spying snitches out? And here’s some light prose as argument:

That Other Golden Calf by Karl Meyer

Loving friends worry for my soul and safety — that my copper phone line and ancient internet affronts the digital gods.

“Nothing good will cometh of it,” they protest.

“Yea, he punisheth the wicked!” I allow. Yet I heedeth not their electronic entreaties.

Still troubled, they beseech, “How can thee existeth in the year of our Lord 2024 without fiber optic?”

“By troth,” I say, “I do lacketh 5-G for thine sacred online shopping, podcasts, streaming and porn. Though I yet dwell in darkness, I wanteth for little.”

“If it please Lord,” they beg, “make him whole!” Yet it is for naught. I heedeth not their cries.

Again they returneth, hearts open, “We fear for thee Brother! Though hast turned aside from the Kingdom of Facebook!”

“It is a mercy!” I reply, yet cleave not to flashy facing page. They scatter.

But anon they re-seeketh me, worried of my untethered wanderings to-and-fro upon the Earth. “Brother, how can thee escheweth the high divinations of the GPS as thou crasheth about in this wilderness?”

“Deliver me,” I say, but turneth not to the Global Positioning, steering yet my path via sun, signpost and ancient tree.

Again dear souls protest, “Though requireth the nourishment of the Apple to feedeth thine spirit and gird thy shopping — yea, to access sport scores and Powerball wagers.”

“It is a mercy!” I attest, yet I tasteth not of the Apple nor nibble at stale Blackberry’s sweetened fruit.

Vexed, they hold me in their dark gaze, “Neither text nor Twitter?” they demand. “Dost though think it meet to walk God’s Earth unlinked to the guidance of Musk, Swift and Trump?”

“It is an abomination!” I allow. Yet I Tweeteth not.

“Yea,” they scold, sharp-tongued, “Not the meagerest SmartPhone — that boss and teen can summon, and government follow thine steps as thou comest and go? Thy salvation, yeah thine very safety dependeth on it!”

“Receive me!” I intone. Yet I convey not my soul to leering Cell Tower.

Beseeching, I raise an ancient tome, a phone book, “Just calleth!” I beg.

A new rending and muttering arises. It fades anon. Full silence descends as each bends to back to their screens — swiping, poking and entrusting their secret souls to a Cloud.

Unremarked, a wren’s notes whistle across the emptied air.

I smileth sheep-like, and confide to the sweet singing companion, “We are as nothing.”

I nod as it holds forth once more, and bend my path toward ancient woods and the river, “Pray we may be delivered.”

Karl Meyer lives in Greenfield.