We Love Our Phones
When we lived on the farm in the 1950s, our telephone was a large wooden box, attached up high on the wall, with a horn-shaped mouthpiece you spoke into and a handheld receiver that you placed on your ear. I doubt that this model of phone had changed much in the half century or so that phones had been common communication devices for rural households in Nebraska. Children did not often answer the phone, let alone use it. On the rare times I talked to one of my grandmas on the phone, Mom or Dad held me up so I could reach the mouthpiece, or I stood on a chair.
The telephone had no push buttons, and no dial, but it did have a crank on the side, which was used to summon the telephone operator or call a neighbor on the same party line. Most calls were operator-assisted; to make a call, you turned the crank, waited for the operator to answer "number please," and gave her the number for the person you wanted to contact. Most phones were on a party line, which meant that several neighbors shared the same phone line. Each party line subscriber had a distinctive ring, such as two shorts and a long, which rang simultaneously in each house on the party line. Theoretically, only the one being called would answer the phone, but it was quite common for people to eavesdrop on their neighbors' conversations. I suspect that listening in on a neighbor's call was sometimes better than watching a television soap opera. Since few homes boasted a television set, party lines provided a wealth of free and convenient entertainment. People who valued their privacy met in person or wrote letters. Calls were kept short out of consideration for neighbors who couldn't use their phones when someone else on the party line was talking on the telephone. Long distance calls were an expensive luxury reserved for momentous occasions such as the birth of a baby or the death of someone in the extended family. Telegrams, delivered in Morse code from one telegraph station to another, and transcribed onto paper, were cheaper, hand-delivered messages that were often used instead of more expensive long distance phone calls.
Grandma and Grandpa Wegner, who lived in town, had a more modern phone, a standard black telephone, still without a dial, but with a private line.
When we moved to Norfolk in late 1959, our telephone service and equipment were greatly improved. Our dial telephone was beige. I still remember the phone number, 371-9565; it was the first phone number I ever learned. I also memorized Grandpa and Grandma Vawser's number, 371-3590; theirs was the number I called most often, to see if I could walk the four blocks or so to their house to play with my Aunt Marilyn.
When we moved to Fairbury a few years later, we stepped backwards in time, at least for a few months, until the new telephone building was completed, and the operator-assisted phones were replaced with dial phones throughout the community. I remember how excited everyone was to get dial phones at last. Along with most of the people in town, our family toured the new telephone company headquarters and oohed and aahed over the new equipment and multi-colored wires that stretched throughout the building, making the old telephones obsolete. (It was kind of funny, really; when we moved there, Fairbury had cable television, with at least a dozen TV channels, while Bloomfield and Norfolk residents continued to live with only three fuzzy TV channels for several more years. Technology has always been fickle.)
Besides the phones located in the two lobby telephone booths, the only dial phone in the Hotel Mary-Etta was located at the front desk switchboard. Both of our apartment phones (one wall phone above the radiator in the corner of the living room, and the other on the wall of Dan's bedroom) were connected directly to the hotel switchboard. When we wanted to make a phone call, we picked up the receiver, waited for the hotel desk clerk to answer, and told her which number to dial for us. All incoming calls were routed through the hotel switchboard, too. By the time I was twelve, I worked sporadically as a desk clerk, and learned to run the telephone switchboard, which connected all hotel residents and guests to the outside world.
By the late sixties and early 1970s, some of my friends' families began to purchase modern princess phones and Mickey Mouse phones. By the early 1980s, push button phones gradually replaced dial phones. In the late 1980s, Bill got his first mobile car phone, which he used for his business. A cellular bag phone soon replaced Bill's first car phone, and a succession of increasingly sophisticated, wireless cell phones has followed.
My first cell phone was a Tracfone that I inherited from my daughter, Meagan, when she left for college with a new and improved cell phone. Eventually, I upgraded to one of Bill's old flip phones. I finally got my first new, blue flip phone about three years ago. Now I'm considering upgrading to an iPhone so I can exchange text messages more easily with my youngest daughter, Victoria.
So, I guess, what goes around, comes around. Weren't telegrams the first text messages, really? Modern text messaging does away with the middle man, and offers cheap, nearly instantaneous written communication in electronic, paperless form. The newest generation of portable cell phones offers an endless selection of ringtones and alarms, full computer and internet capabilities, and integrated digital cameras (with video as well as still photos). My grandparents would be astounded to see that the amazing, high-tech communications devises introduced in 1960s science fiction television shows, like Star Trek, have been improved upon tremendously, superseded by current-day cell phones. Yet, I recently heard of a young child who suggested to his mom, who was always misplacing her cell phone, that someone should invent a telephone that is hooked to the wall, so it can always be found easily when needed. Just imagine it--a phone that is permanently attached to the wall. What will they think of next?
The telephone had no push buttons, and no dial, but it did have a crank on the side, which was used to summon the telephone operator or call a neighbor on the same party line. Most calls were operator-assisted; to make a call, you turned the crank, waited for the operator to answer "number please," and gave her the number for the person you wanted to contact. Most phones were on a party line, which meant that several neighbors shared the same phone line. Each party line subscriber had a distinctive ring, such as two shorts and a long, which rang simultaneously in each house on the party line. Theoretically, only the one being called would answer the phone, but it was quite common for people to eavesdrop on their neighbors' conversations. I suspect that listening in on a neighbor's call was sometimes better than watching a television soap opera. Since few homes boasted a television set, party lines provided a wealth of free and convenient entertainment. People who valued their privacy met in person or wrote letters. Calls were kept short out of consideration for neighbors who couldn't use their phones when someone else on the party line was talking on the telephone. Long distance calls were an expensive luxury reserved for momentous occasions such as the birth of a baby or the death of someone in the extended family. Telegrams, delivered in Morse code from one telegraph station to another, and transcribed onto paper, were cheaper, hand-delivered messages that were often used instead of more expensive long distance phone calls.
Grandma and Grandpa Wegner, who lived in town, had a more modern phone, a standard black telephone, still without a dial, but with a private line.
When we moved to Norfolk in late 1959, our telephone service and equipment were greatly improved. Our dial telephone was beige. I still remember the phone number, 371-9565; it was the first phone number I ever learned. I also memorized Grandpa and Grandma Vawser's number, 371-3590; theirs was the number I called most often, to see if I could walk the four blocks or so to their house to play with my Aunt Marilyn.
When we moved to Fairbury a few years later, we stepped backwards in time, at least for a few months, until the new telephone building was completed, and the operator-assisted phones were replaced with dial phones throughout the community. I remember how excited everyone was to get dial phones at last. Along with most of the people in town, our family toured the new telephone company headquarters and oohed and aahed over the new equipment and multi-colored wires that stretched throughout the building, making the old telephones obsolete. (It was kind of funny, really; when we moved there, Fairbury had cable television, with at least a dozen TV channels, while Bloomfield and Norfolk residents continued to live with only three fuzzy TV channels for several more years. Technology has always been fickle.)
Besides the phones located in the two lobby telephone booths, the only dial phone in the Hotel Mary-Etta was located at the front desk switchboard. Both of our apartment phones (one wall phone above the radiator in the corner of the living room, and the other on the wall of Dan's bedroom) were connected directly to the hotel switchboard. When we wanted to make a phone call, we picked up the receiver, waited for the hotel desk clerk to answer, and told her which number to dial for us. All incoming calls were routed through the hotel switchboard, too. By the time I was twelve, I worked sporadically as a desk clerk, and learned to run the telephone switchboard, which connected all hotel residents and guests to the outside world.
By the late sixties and early 1970s, some of my friends' families began to purchase modern princess phones and Mickey Mouse phones. By the early 1980s, push button phones gradually replaced dial phones. In the late 1980s, Bill got his first mobile car phone, which he used for his business. A cellular bag phone soon replaced Bill's first car phone, and a succession of increasingly sophisticated, wireless cell phones has followed.
My first cell phone was a Tracfone that I inherited from my daughter, Meagan, when she left for college with a new and improved cell phone. Eventually, I upgraded to one of Bill's old flip phones. I finally got my first new, blue flip phone about three years ago. Now I'm considering upgrading to an iPhone so I can exchange text messages more easily with my youngest daughter, Victoria.
So, I guess, what goes around, comes around. Weren't telegrams the first text messages, really? Modern text messaging does away with the middle man, and offers cheap, nearly instantaneous written communication in electronic, paperless form. The newest generation of portable cell phones offers an endless selection of ringtones and alarms, full computer and internet capabilities, and integrated digital cameras (with video as well as still photos). My grandparents would be astounded to see that the amazing, high-tech communications devises introduced in 1960s science fiction television shows, like Star Trek, have been improved upon tremendously, superseded by current-day cell phones. Yet, I recently heard of a young child who suggested to his mom, who was always misplacing her cell phone, that someone should invent a telephone that is hooked to the wall, so it can always be found easily when needed. Just imagine it--a phone that is permanently attached to the wall. What will they think of next?
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