Across the Fence #292
As I was walking down the street the other day, I met a man walking toward me who was talking to himself. If this had been on State Street in Madison, I wouldn’t have thought twice about it, but this was in Westby. People around here usually carry on conversations with other people.
This man was well-dressed and looked like a businessman, not the “talking to themselves” type of person I was used to seeing. Then as I got closer, I realized he was having a phone conservation. He had a small Bluetooth communication device in his ear.
Times have sure changed since the days when you had to stand next to the crank wall phone and talk into the protruding mouthpiece while holding the receiver to your ear. You couldn’t roam around the house, or kick back in the Lazy Boy with your feet up, while talking on that phone. Also, you couldn’t use it while walking down the street. It was very heavy and would have taken a really, really long cord.
I got to thinking. What would my grandmothers and mother think if they could see the many changes in telephones and how we carry on conversations these days? What would they think if they could see people walking down the street talking into a small cell phone held up to their ear, or the man talking without holding anything up to his ear or mouth?
It seems like only yesterday that Grandma Inga or Ma would be standing by the wall phone, talking or rubbernecking. For all you younger folks, who aren’t familiar with that term, run to your computer and Google it. For the older crowd, I’ll bet every one of you would have to plead guilty if I asked you if you’ve ever rubbernecked. Don’t try to deny it. You know you’ve done it.
I suspect Ma would be horrified if she knew I had mentioned she occasionally rubbernecked. Both my parents were gone long before I started writing “Across the Fence.” I don’t know what they’d think about me writing a weekly column. They’d probably have worried every week as they waited for the paper to arrive, hoping I wasn’t going to write something that would embarrass the family name.
But now I’m sailing up the wrong fjord again, lets get back to the telephone. Telephone communication has certainly changed in my lifetime. I wonder what changes the next fifty years will bring? I can’t even imagine. Most people my age and older, grew up using party lines. No, I’m not talking about political parties and their party line. I’ve mentioned before that my grandmother and two aunts were on our party line. My mother and them sometimes had four-way conversations. Conference calling is nothing new to people who were on party lines.
That one phone, fastened to the wall, served the whole family. It was unheard of for kids to have their own phone. If you wanted to call and talk with a girl, it was very embarrassing because the whole family could sit and listen to what you were saying. If you tried to talk real soft, the girl couldn’t hear you and would ask you to talk louder. Since you had to stand right by the phone to talk and listen, there was no place to have a private conversation. Maybe it’s a good thing I didn’t have many dates in high school. It could have been very stressful.
Now I see elementary school kids walking around, talking on cell phones. I don’t imagine very many of those kids are paying the monthly bills for those phones. I’m from the old school that thinks kids should be doing some kind of work to earn some money to pay for things like that. They could mow lawns in the summer, help around the house, and shovel sidewalks in the winter. You’re never too young to learn that most things in life aren’t free. It’s disturbing to hear that the first job most kids have these days is the one they get when they graduate from college. I guess a lot more things than telephones have changed during my lifetime.
I’ve got a phone in my office with more buttons, bells, and whistles than an old airplane. You should have an advanced degree in electronics to operate it. However, that’s nothing compared to the new cell phones that do everything but take out the garbage for you. They even have a built-in GPS so you can see where you are or how to find where you’re going. If you do get lost, you can take a photo of yourself with the phone and put it on a milk carton before your battery runs down and you aren’t able to call anyone. Yes, there are some disadvantages too. They do need to be recharged. With the old wall phones, you could talk all day and night if you had that much to say, and it seldom went dead unless lightning struck the line.
As I was walking down the street the other day, I met a man walking toward me who was talking to himself. If this had been on State Street in Madison, I wouldn’t have thought twice about it, but this was in Westby. People around here usually carry on conversations with other people.
This man was well-dressed and looked like a businessman, not the “talking to themselves” type of person I was used to seeing. Then as I got closer, I realized he was having a phone conservation. He had a small Bluetooth communication device in his ear.
Times have sure changed since the days when you had to stand next to the crank wall phone and talk into the protruding mouthpiece while holding the receiver to your ear. You couldn’t roam around the house, or kick back in the Lazy Boy with your feet up, while talking on that phone. Also, you couldn’t use it while walking down the street. It was very heavy and would have taken a really, really long cord.
I got to thinking. What would my grandmothers and mother think if they could see the many changes in telephones and how we carry on conversations these days? What would they think if they could see people walking down the street talking into a small cell phone held up to their ear, or the man talking without holding anything up to his ear or mouth?
It seems like only yesterday that Grandma Inga or Ma would be standing by the wall phone, talking or rubbernecking. For all you younger folks, who aren’t familiar with that term, run to your computer and Google it. For the older crowd, I’ll bet every one of you would have to plead guilty if I asked you if you’ve ever rubbernecked. Don’t try to deny it. You know you’ve done it.
I suspect Ma would be horrified if she knew I had mentioned she occasionally rubbernecked. Both my parents were gone long before I started writing “Across the Fence.” I don’t know what they’d think about me writing a weekly column. They’d probably have worried every week as they waited for the paper to arrive, hoping I wasn’t going to write something that would embarrass the family name.
But now I’m sailing up the wrong fjord again, lets get back to the telephone. Telephone communication has certainly changed in my lifetime. I wonder what changes the next fifty years will bring? I can’t even imagine. Most people my age and older, grew up using party lines. No, I’m not talking about political parties and their party line. I’ve mentioned before that my grandmother and two aunts were on our party line. My mother and them sometimes had four-way conversations. Conference calling is nothing new to people who were on party lines.
That one phone, fastened to the wall, served the whole family. It was unheard of for kids to have their own phone. If you wanted to call and talk with a girl, it was very embarrassing because the whole family could sit and listen to what you were saying. If you tried to talk real soft, the girl couldn’t hear you and would ask you to talk louder. Since you had to stand right by the phone to talk and listen, there was no place to have a private conversation. Maybe it’s a good thing I didn’t have many dates in high school. It could have been very stressful.
Now I see elementary school kids walking around, talking on cell phones. I don’t imagine very many of those kids are paying the monthly bills for those phones. I’m from the old school that thinks kids should be doing some kind of work to earn some money to pay for things like that. They could mow lawns in the summer, help around the house, and shovel sidewalks in the winter. You’re never too young to learn that most things in life aren’t free. It’s disturbing to hear that the first job most kids have these days is the one they get when they graduate from college. I guess a lot more things than telephones have changed during my lifetime.
I’ve got a phone in my office with more buttons, bells, and whistles than an old airplane. You should have an advanced degree in electronics to operate it. However, that’s nothing compared to the new cell phones that do everything but take out the garbage for you. They even have a built-in GPS so you can see where you are or how to find where you’re going. If you do get lost, you can take a photo of yourself with the phone and put it on a milk carton before your battery runs down and you aren’t able to call anyone. Yes, there are some disadvantages too. They do need to be recharged. With the old wall phones, you could talk all day and night if you had that much to say, and it seldom went dead unless lightning struck the line.
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