I texted my sister last week, asking her for her home mailing address. I wanted to send her a card, but I didn’t have my address book at the office.

She texted me back her address along with an extra comment – “Get with current technology and put my address in your phone.”

“Who deals with an address book anymore,” she said with a laugh when I called to thank her for the address.

I figured everyone had a tattered A-Z address book with the home addresses of all their friends and relatives penciled in the pages.

They don’t. At least not any more. People keep up with email or Facebook addresses because few people mail letters or cards to other people.

Perhaps keeping home addresses is out of touch with today’s way of communicating – emails, evites and texting – but there’s something special about getting a card in the mail – the U.S. mail – that’s been addressed by hand and has a hand-written note on the inside.

In a metal box in my closet are letters my father, mother and grandfather wrote to me, and those letters are priceless. They’re a tangible reminder of my loved ones’ personalities, their being that shines through the shaky and slanted penmanship on the paper.

I looked online for other obsolete items in the home. Topping the list was encyclopedias. I’ll go along with that idea, but I have fond memories of sitting down with the Childcraft “How and Why” books for hours, reading about animals, different countries and the mysteries of the ocean.

Today, I can find all that information in seconds on Google, but I’m glad I have memories of getting the actual book off the shelf, year after year, and reading the books together with my younger siblings.

Phones have long been on the extinct list, and I wouldn’t trade my cell phone for all the wall or rotary phones in the world.

But there were long hours of sitting with a pink Princess rotary phone in my lap, wrapping the cord around my wrist and fingers, while talking to my high school best friend Trudi about who was the cutest Beatle – John or Paul.

Much has been written about the uselessness of a paper map, and I’m the first one to let an electronic voice in my car tell me exactly where to turn, where the traffic jams are and when it’s time to slow down because there’s a radar gun ahead.

But I’m glad my dad taught me how to follow a route on a paper map and that our sons know how to read a map as well. Those of us who know how to fold up a paper map get extra bragging rights.

The article also noted that photo albums are obsolete now that we have digital displays that flash images like a miniature television screen.

On this entry, I’ll disagree.

I love looking through old photo albums, especially with the older members of my family. Those black-and-white photos with the black triangular paste-in corners open up the memory floodgates.

Their rich stories about the old days connect me to the past much more than walking past a flashing digital display on a bookshelf. I now find myself flipping through photo albums with my grandchildren, passing the tradition on to another generation.

I wouldn’t trade my much-erased and dog-eared address book, oversized photo albums or the faded family pictures on the wall for all the high-tech, speedy electronics in the world.

So pass me that princess rotary phone because I still remember my best friend’s phone number.

Trudi, we still need to talk about George and Ringo.

This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald.