A few weeks ago, we lost our internet connection and were plunged into the bleak desert of, say, 1985.

This corresponded with the loss of our streaming television services, plunging us into the time of antennas, radios, and dinosaurs.

I wrote about that and promised I would finish the tale of our return to civilization, the miraculous recovery of our internet connection, in another column.

Here then is that column.

Conaway: If they’re smart, I’m an idiot

It begins with a little red meat for my fellow Neanderthal males, aka boomers, those of us with the receding hairlines, if not non-existent hairlines, and prominent furrowed brows, if not permanent furrowed brows, and a bit of a hunched-over walk, if not a permanent hunched-over walk.

I’ve written many times about this species' love of the time gone by, of the desire to return to when right was right and anything else was communism.

The time of hunter-gatherers and Lawrence Welk.

The time when you ran all day through safe neighborhoods with your dog and came home to meet Dad in the driveway, and you both went inside where Mom was putting dinner on the table promptly at six.

That was actually Robert Young on TV in “Father Knows Best,” and just as real.

And so on, and on, ad nauseum.

Conaway: General Assembly provides plenty of column fodder

The time when boomers will tell you that you could fix most anything with a hammer, a screwdriver, some electrical tape, a jiggle here and there, and sometimes a swift kick.

That went for cars, too, when you could pop the hood and see everything in there, including the ground underneath.

That’s the time of selective and inventive memory so popular when we gather to lament the present and right the world, “and another damn thing.”

Well, boys, you might be on to something after all. This tale will reassure you.

Dave Swearingen, my first boss and one of the real “Madmen,” told me a story.

He had a ski boat in the ‘50s. When the outboard crapped out, Dave removed it, dropped it down behind the boat in the driveway, and proceeded to take it apart, piece by piece, lining every piece up in order all the way down the driveway to the street, interspersed with a few beer cans.

Conaway: This is our time. But we have to realize it.

He didn’t know how to fix it, but when he saw what was broken, he picked up the offending parts, went to Western Auto or Stewart Brothers or the like, and bought replacements, and put it all back together in order up the driveway.

“Started on the first pull,” he told me.

I remembered that story when my mother-in-law dropped the leaves of three artichokes down the disposal in our first house. Disposals were foreign to her. Turns out, artichoke leaves are foreign to disposals, and choked ours to a screaming halt.

I pulled it out, nasty green fibers intertwined throughout, and took it apart, piece by piece, ridding each of artichoke knots, and lining them up in order the length of the kitchen floor, interspersed with a few beer cans. I then put it back together, put it back under the sink, turned on the water and flipped the switch.

Dave, bless your heart, it fired right up.

Conaway: A messy desk, a mess of memories

Returning to the present and the missing internet, the first call was to our daughter for instructions on the finer points of “hotspots.” I could have called any of my grandchildren, ages 3, 9, and 11, but that would be embarrassing.

If you’re not aware of what a “hotspot” is, it’s what your phone can become to provide an internet connection when your router has gone south.

Since your cellular provider knows that you’re in desperate need, the cost of a “hotspot” is roughly the same per minute as we boomers used to pay for something called “long distance telephone calls” to, say, Bangladesh or the Siberian steppes, say, what Elon Musk paid for Twitter.

Then, the next call was to AT&T since we have U-verse, the “U” is for “Uh-Uh.”

Well, it wasn’t really the next call; it was the next 12 calls since I had to figure out what the latest 1-800 number was that was still in service and/or would actually connect me to somebody. I would give you the number, but by the time you read this it will be out of service. Providers change these numbers just as soon as the Navajo code breakers get through.

Conaway: Christmas time, together at table and memory

“We have checked your connection,” Steve in Mumbai says, “and you have a power problem. Go to the white box.”

“The router?”

“No, the white box the router is plugged into, three cords come out of the bottom. One is the power cord. It will be in that room.”

It wasn’t. To his credit, he stayed on the phone, while I literally pulled furniture away from the walls, crawled under my desk, and the guest bed. No white box. Several black power boxes, Sleep Number boxes, a mile of wire, dog toys, dust bunnies, a sock, old receipts — a briefcase I thought I lost in 2003 — no white box.

“It will be in the house somewhere,” he said, staying on the phone, “it cannot be outside. It is required to be in the house.”

Conaway: Ghost of a river — Part Two

It wasn’t. Nora joined the search, and we went through the whole house — every wall. I gave the dogs a scent of the router and told them, “Seek!” Our dogs don’t seek. Evidently, we don’t either. No white box.

He made an appointment for a technician, four days hence. Four more days of the hotspot. Nora made plans to sell her wedding ring, I was giving up the watch my father left me.

The AT&T tech arrived, and I related my conversation with “Steve” in Mumbai. After a brief search for the white box, the tech asked, “Did you look in the attic?”

The attic. Granted, that’s in the house. Home to the hot water heater, the upstairs furnace, squirrels, the occasional raccoon, and, quite possibly, the white box.

“No,” I answered, as we headed for the drop-down steps in the closet.

Conaway: Ghost of a river — Part One

Up we went — this is where Dave’s approach checks back in — and we found a wire coming up from the router in the room below. We tracked it to a louvered window, where it disappeared — outside — this is where I wanted to call “Steve” back. 

The tech said, “I don’t know where this goes, but this is it.” 

“Follow me,” I said, now in full Dave mode. 

We went outside and spotted it under an eave, then down a wall, then along the ground and under the patio fence, then through a flower bed where it joined a graveyard of dead wires from former providers, then surfaced behind a fountain only to disappear beneath the screened porch.

“Now what?” the tech asked, emerging from the flower bed, and checking the bottom of his shoes, reminiscent of Robert Redford in the Bolivian llama and pig yard in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. “Do you have any idea where this goes?”

Conaway: To see the wonder, all you have to do is look

“Yes,” I beamed. “We’re close.” If you didn’t get the Redford reference, just ask a boomer.

I led him around the porch, past the gas grill, to the wall on the far side where there was — a white box — “Steve’s” white box, actually gray, outside. The tech opened it with a key. There weren’t three wires coming out of the bottom, just one. It was tiny, like the line to the smallest of your many toys over the years, maybe a recharger for an old calculator.

We followed it down the brick wall and around the corner where the screen had been pulled back for the plug to pass through and was then tacked back to the porch frame.

There, behind a chair, the tiny wire led to a surge protector where the plug had become loose.

The surge protector was home to a string of paper lantern party lights on the porch. They still worked. The so-called state-of-the-art 5G hyper-fast zillion-gig instantaneous internet connection to galaxies far, far away did not. The tiny little wire outside that powered all of that had been nudged loose by a passing dog, or the chair leg, or the raccoon.

Conaway: We have models; what will we be?

We pushed the plug back in, discussed the Grizzlies for a sec, and the tech left.

There was no charge. I turned on the party lights.

In other words, we put the outboard and the disposal back together by just following the pieces down the driveway and through the kitchen.

Dave, rest your soul, it came right back on.

I’m a Memphian, and evidently a U-Verse technician.