Vacationing with teenagers is an adventure any time, but add a special circumstance and the experience can be defined in many ways, but never as a vacation. Teenagers can be moody, temperamental, exasperating creatures even in the best of times, but nothing can compare to a teenager deprived of something he believes is as essential as the air he breathes.

I never realized how indispensable cell phones had become until my 16-year-old son lost the use of his and had no immediate remedy for the problem. He had been fishing and dropped his sunglasses in the water. When he went to retrieve the glasses, his cell phone popped out of his vest and began following his glasses down the river. The panic this induced allowed him to fetch the cell phone, although his sunglasses are now lodged somewhere on the bottom of the Yellowstone River.

Unlike the sunglasses, which once retrieved would have been readily usable again, the waterlogged cell phone was permanently out of service. That meant my 16-year-old faced the prospect of a full week without instant communication with his friends, acquaintances, romantic interest and the world. It also meant for the rest of the family a week of indescribable annoyance full of whining, begging and surliness.

In turn, he pestered, cajoled, bribed and threatened his sister and mother for use of their phones. He dared not ask for mine out of fear of the standard lecture on responsibility he would get. When none of his solicitations worked, he would sulk, exhibiting an air of forlornness he was sure would soften the hardest of hearts. Sometimes it worked, most of the time it didn't.

His desperation grew so acute that he walked off with his mother's cell phone despite her demands for its return. It was a rash act and one he came to regret because he was not allowed to use her phone again for the rest of the vacation.

My son's behavior over the loss of his cell phone was hardly abnormal. As any parent of a teenager will attest, cell phones have become more a part of teen apparel than an instrument of communication. One father I know says he would swear his daughter had permanently glued her cell phone to her ear, but he said that wasn't true because when the phone wasn't at her ear, she was texting on it.

I have a message for any parent who is thinking of fighting this latest generational gap: Don't. We are witnessing the future, complete with new technology, new language and new behavior. And although some of us might mourn the loss of pure privacy and the state of being alone, those are values not particularly shared by our children. And that's OK because it's their turn to shape the world.

The introduction of Apple's new "iPhone" was a convenient coincidence to my son's cell-phone dilemma. Despite all the marketing hype surrounding the new phone, it can't be denied that the "iPhone" is a remarkable piece of new technology. It can do so many things with such ease that the only thought that comes to mind is, "What will they think of next?"

That, to me, is the true essence of the "iPhone." One is left to ask where will it all end, or will it end? How long will it be before all of our technological gadgetry will be contained in one small device that acts as our television, computer, telephone and anything else we can think of? Are implants in our future where we think it and it happens? Nanotechnology is with us now, and what does it portend?

I admit that much of this is happening faster than I can comprehend or want to comprehend. I am caught between my fascination with all that is going on and a vague sense that we are losing some things I consider very special. Perhaps I should just be thankful that I have been able to experience the past, present and future.

Strangely, I don't have a sense of melancholy about the changes taking place, nor do I feel the need to express outrage and indignation. If anything, I am bemused by it all. I am bemused because I have come to understand that the changes taking place are as they should be and have always been.

Correction: In my July 1 column, I stated that Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren was not a trained lawyer. I couldn't have been more wrong. Warren earned his law degree from Boalt Hall at the University of California, now UC Berkeley, in 1914. He went on to serve three terms as district attorney for Alameda County and one term as attorney general for the state of California before his election to governor in 1942.

— Joe R. Howry is editor of The Star. He can be reached at 437-0200 or by e-mail at jhowry@VenturaCountyStar.com.