Phones: Then and Now

             When you think about it, phones have changed a lot in the last fifty or more years. They are now not only portable, but small enough to get lost in a tooth cavity or show up in unexpected places, like in the fishing tackle box you hid under the bed.  Last week I retrieved two cell phones from the laundry hamper and one from the dog’s dish.  I got there just in time.

            Back when I was a child we were like every other family.  We had one phone and only one phone.  And like all phones of that era, it was a black phone with a rotary dial.  It was at least twenty years before it occurred to anyone that a phone could be manufactured in a colour other than black.  

            Despite the lack of colour choice, you did have two options.  You could have a wall mounted phone or one that sat on the counter.  However, the location of the phone was non-negotiable.  Phones were always located in or near kitchens back then, the logic being that the homemaker spent most of her time there.  Placing the phone nearby meant that she wouldn’t have to run all over the house when it rang.  Etiquette dictated that she must answer the phone within two rings - it was impolite to keep the caller waiting.   She would have to deal with the leg she broke tripping over the dog in her phone-inspired dash after the call had ended.

My dad insisted we needed a wall mounted phone. He was sure that we would knock the table model on the floor and break it - an event as calamitous as an A-bomb plunking down in our back yard.  It was common knowledge that you were allowed one phone per household per lifetime.  That black phone was going to have to last you until the end of eternity, maybe even longer, no one could say for sure. Phones were so special you couldn’t even own one.  They were the property of the phone company, and damaging corporate property was more than likely punishable by execution of the entire family.  In the event of a fire, the phone was to be saved before your purse, your best hat, the radio you hadn’t finished paying for yet, and your Granny.

            The phone didn’t ring much back then.  It was only to be used for serious matters, and only for adult matters.  If you wanted to play kick-the-can with your best buddy you walked over to his house and knocked on the door.  This let his mother decide if you were a worthy playmate, depending on how clean/polite you were, and whether or not their family dog was inclined to seize you in his jaws and toss you around the yard.  The latter was a true test of your character and was an option that simply could not be exercised over the phone.  A clean hankie in your pocket and recently trimmed fingernails also went a long way toward impressing another kid’s mother.

When the phone did ring the phone calls were usually for Mom. These involved the church potluck suppers or bridge club meetings or baby showers that were the meat and potatoes of social life in the 1950’s and ‘60’s.  Rarely, oh so rarely, the phone calls would be for Dad.  This was so uncommon that it would leave the family awestruck for the better part of a week.   A meteorite slicing through the roof and striking you dead in your bed was a more likely event.  Invariably these infrequent calls came during dinnertime.  Forks dropped into plates during the shocked silence that fell over the dinner table.  Billy would swallow his pork chop whole and the dog would forget all about table scraps and start whimpering in the corner.  I would spill my full glass of milk and it would actually go unnoticed.  We would not even breathe.  Something of major importance was about to happen.

Phones were limited use items back then.  For example, the school did not phone home when you misbehaved.   If your transgressions required parental intervention, a hand-written note from your teacher was sent home, summoning Mom to the school.  Both the presentation of the note and the trip to the school by your mother instantly made even small infractions balloon into events of Biblical proportions.  

Schools have now come to rely very heavily on the use of the phone.  They even have phones that can dial themselves.  Teachers no longer need to waste time and paper writing notes to parents – they have an “automated dialer” to deliver the bad news.  The dialer doesn’t have a lot of information at its disposal so it just gives you a tease, kind of like a movie trailer.  It only has a few vague facts:  some student who lives at your address missed something, sometime.  You aren’t given the name of the student, just his grade.  You are given the date, but the time period is just hinted at, for example, “period two.” 

The auto-dialer leaves a cryptic message such as, “A student in grade nine in your household was absent from period three on November 3rd.”  What the message is hinting at is often difficult to interpret and might point the finger of suspicion at more than one of your offspring.  It doesn’t much matter.  If your kids have figured out how to answer the phone, you’re never going to hear that message.  It’s a wonderful example of advanced phone technology, but I don’t think it’s much of an improvement over the teacher’s note.  Sure the note could be tossed in the gutter on the way home, but the note was personal and ditching it would have led to a feeling of guilt.  Foiling the auto-dialer?  Who cares if the autodialer’s feelings get hurt?  That would just be silly.

Now, thanks to cell phones, calls follow us everywhere.  The dentist has to fill your tooth between phone calls and the doctor has to take a break from repairing your aorta to let the telemarketers know that you’re currently unavailable.  The phone rings while your boyfriend is on bended knee with diamond ring in hand, and he has to pause while you tell the Nigerians that they’ll have to wait until later to put all that money in your bank account. Your cell phone rings while you’re pumping gas, and you wonder if you are going to go down in urban legend history by blowing up an entire city block.

 Phones have changed just about everything.  It’s kind of tricky to figure out if their constant companionship is a plus.  A mere fifty years ago your phone would have been at home, safety attached to the wall.  Blowing up a gas pump was way less likely.  Aorta repair and marriage proposals could go undisturbed.  No one drove into a ditch/wall/movie theatre or backyard pool while typing on their phone. Disasters at the office somehow managed to wait until Monday.  And you could plan a whole vacation without ever once having to plot a route that stayed within the range of cell phone towers!