Trying to catch a few winks after a particularly long, bumpy flight from Copenhagen to Minneapolis, on an airport bench specifically designed to prevent waiting passengers from snoozing, I grew annoyed at somebody.

So did hundreds of drained passengers trying to cop a few zees, while a man with a bellicose voice prevented any slumbering.

Let me explain:

We’d just completed a 12-hour return trip, followed immediately by a grueling customs-airport security inspection and were waiting for our flight to Albuquerque, provided we lived through the six-hour layover. I thought of feeding my morbid curiosity. “Isn’t this the place where Larry Craig got busted for attempting a lewd act?” I asked my wife, Bonnie.

Somebody must’ve overheard us. “It’s the second stall from the right in the restroom by the main food court,” someone said. At the time, people were still taking pictures of the stall where the U.S. senator from Idaho became the victim of a sting operation a year earlier and eventually resigned.

The desire for sleep won out over any prurient interest, and I left the Larry Craig monument to return to the gate.

I wish I hadn’t, as the man with the stentorian voice, Mr. Megaphone, began ranting. Is this some lonely street person who talks to himself? I wondered. The monologue seemed disjointed. We’d hear an occasional laugh, and a “that’s right,” followed by a “too bad,” but not much coherence. Finally the man turned his head, and what have we here? He sported a BlackBerry cell phone on his ear. All the time we believed he was having a self-conversation, but instead he was chatting — loudly — with someone else.

Notice how hands-free devices such as attachable cell phones make others wonder whether the wearer is in possession of his faculties. And why does every such user believe he needs to shout, to trumpet his drivel to the four winds?

Technology has changed things in ways most people never dreamed possible. I’m sure even Alexander Graham Bell never imagined his invention as becoming cordless or mobile, unless equipped with a very long cord. For all of my youth, a phone was a thing attached to a cord that enabled people to talk to one another.

The first phone we ever had was a four-way party line — I use the word “party” loosely. It didn’t have any of those fancy buttons to place a person on hold or to transfer a call. No, there were no buttons or dials at all. All I needed to do was lift the phone, wait for my schoolmates-operators Mary Quintana or Juliet Geoffrion to say, “Number, please,” and we were set.

In Las Vegas in the ‘40s and ‘50s, the still-existing restaurant, the Hillcrest, sponsored something called “The Hillcrest Half Hour,” on KFUN. As I recall, the deejay at the station would play part of a song, and the first person to phone in and identify the tune would win Traveling Chicken, a take-home dinner.

Now imagine having several dozen listeners competing to be first in the operators’ queue. Callers often put on a sugary-sweet voice, hoping to win favor with one of the operators. I never had any luck, and for a long time believed the contest was rigged.

After that simple phone came dial phones, Princess phones, and a variety of other shapes and sizes, some with light-up dials and volume and ring control. Did we ever envision a time when phones would become miniaturized and at the same time capable of mesmerizing millions? At the Golden Corral recently, we saw two youngsters texting and both parents on cell phones.

Instinctively, I wondered why the husband and wife didn’t simply talk to each other directly rather than needing for both cell phones’ signals to bounce off a satellite to make the connection. But maybe they were speaking to someone else.

My granddaughter Celina doesn’t own a cell phone but is as conversant with them as any typical 8-year-old. She knows how to use the cell phone, for purposes that go way beyond talking. Phones now can hook you up with the Internet, provide millions of games to play and serve as an alarm clock, appointment book, library, iPod and much more.

So what happened earlier this year when we visited relatives in Missouri, where Celina’s Aunt Kay still uses a genuine dial phone? We called Celina’s mother and handed our granddaughter the phone. But first you must visualize the receiver as being by comparison the size of a horse’s leg, and no clear indication as to which end one speaks and listens.

Celina simply froze, not knowing how that complicated piece of equipment operated. Technology indeed has changed things. In almost all cases anymore, it’s a misstatement to say we “dial” a phone.

• • •

How often do you hear newscasters and others refer to “La Bajada Hill”? That’s the descent near Santa Fe. We like to explain to these people that what’s implied by “bajada” makes La Bajada Hill redundant.

So what must people think when they dial up highly articulate Jesus Lopez’s program on KFUN radio, and the lawyer-historian uses the term “Rio Grande River”? A slip of the tongue? Tell us we were just imaging having heard you say that, Jesus.

• • •

One highlight of next year’s Fourth of July Fiestas just might be a new dance the current Fiestas Council is choreographing. I have no doubt it’ll catch on in the same way the Macarena once grew in popularity.

The new dance ought to be called the “Fiesta Council Shuffle.” It doesn’t contain 250 steps, or even 18, reduced to 12, so it’s not that hard to learn.

Here’s how it goes:

• One step forward
• Four steps backward
• Then sidestep
• Repeat

That’s what it’s all about.