The other day I was talking to my friend Marty, and casually mentioned that I had sent Miss Peggy an e-mail.

"You send e-mails to your wife?" he responded with raised eyebrows.

Well, yeah. I've been doing it for some time — ever since Miss Peggy has owned a laptop, which has been several years now.

Whenever I receive an e-mail I think she'll be interested in, I click on "forward" and type in her e-mail address. Whenever I want to pass on a bit of non-urgent information, I send it courtesy of AOL. Whenever I feel the need to say "I love you," and she has a telephone in her ear, I just e-mail her. It's not quite as romantic as whispering it in her ear, but the thought does get through.

It's not that we aren't speaking to each other. It's just that the opportunity to e-mail comes much more often than the opportunity to speak to her directly. We have eight kids, a dozen grandkids and a handful of great-grandkids, and some of them feel the need to hear Mama's or Grandmama's voice daily. With so many voices competing for her ear, it isn't always easy for me to squeeze in a word.

Lately, too, her two youngest daughters obtained web cameras for their computers and one of them bought one for Miss Peggy. That means that they can sit and chat for hours while gazing into each other's eyes. I can't chat for hours with anybody. After five minutes, my food for thought has been utterly exhausted, and the conversation dies from starvation.

Miss Peggy, however, can sustain a conversation with her female offspring for hours with scarcely a lull. Since my normal small talk seems hardly weighty enough to justify interrupting a mother-daughter conversation, I rely on e-mail.

I first began using e-mail instead of direct conversation when newspapers brought computers into the newsroom. I headed a staff of four editorial writers in Roanoke, Va., and each of us occupied a separate office. So when I edited the editorials, instead of using a black copy pencil on the paper copy, I would use the strike-through mode on the computer's word processor to suggest changes. Then I would forward it to the writer, who would have the opportunity to accept the changes, argue with them, or suggest alternatives. The exchanges were often humorous; we would often circulate among ourselves examples of hilarious goofs in our own copy and the stories and columns from the wire services. So I would work within a few feet of my staff every day and engage in oral small talk only at the coffee-maker or over lunch.

When I retired from the newspaper, we joined the ranks of multiple-computer families so that Miss Peggy could indulge her fascination with computer games while I was around the house, even when I was pecking out columns on the home computer. E-mail enabled me to share tidbits of wisdom, humor and information without butting in on her conversations with the kids. It also enabled both of us to avoid straining our voices. As we've grown older, our hearing has deteriorated, so it has become necessary to raise our voices to get each other's attention. If there's something I want to say to her, and it isn't urgent, I don't yell across the apartment; I just e-mail it to her, and eventually she'll read it.

Wireless Internet has contributed greatly to our man-to-wife e-mail. Once it was necessary for Miss Peggy to sit across the work center from me so that her laptop could be connected to the router that enables us both to use the same high-speed Internet service. I used e-mail mostly when she wasn't at my elbow. Now that she has a laptop with wireless capability, she can carry her laptop to the bedroom, where she can relax with a cup of tea on her bedside table and a telephone within arm's reach, while she reads a book, plays a computer game and swaps instant messages with the kids. Miss Peggy can do all these things at once. I have a one-track mind. I can either write or talk or read, but I can't do all three at the same time.

Our computers have helped us to make the adjustment from a pre-retirement routine in which we were separated from each other for 8 to 10 hours a day to a retirement routine that keeps us within hollering distance for most of the day.

I've known retired couples who couldn't make the adjustment from separate lives during working hours to 24-7 togetherness. They got in each other's way, got on each other's nerves, and generally made each other miserable.

E-mail allows us to stay in touch even as we pursue our separate interests. Miss Peggy loves to sew, but her laptop is seldom far from her sewing equipment. While I'm writing a column, she may be hemming a dress or restyling a set of drapes for a friend (usually while talking on the telephone). If I want to know what's for lunch, I can walk in and ask. But if I want to know whether she dropped off the laundry or whether she's free to have dinner with the Baileys next Friday or would like to go out of town with me next month for a speech, I can just send her an e-mail.

At 10 p.m. each day, when the telephone has stopped ringing, the computers have gone into hibernation and both our heads have hit the pillows, we can talk.

Readers may write Gene Owens at 317 Braeburn Drive, Anderson SC 29621 or e-mail him at WadesDixieco@aol.com.