After much debate in our household we finally have made the momentous
decision to cancel our landline phone service.
Those of you under 30 probably are saying “a land…what?” while our
parents are saying “how can you possibly manage?” I mentioned this decision on Twitter and got
the same mixed reaction.
We’ve debated the pro’s and con’s and decided the $40 per
month service was simply enabling the pesky duct cleaning telemarketers to interrupt
our dinners 3 times a week. All other
calls can be easily managed by our ever present mobile phones.
But now a little nostalgia… I am of a certain age and a
country boy…so unlike today where telephones are a given…when I was a kid…not
so much.
When my parents moved to the wilds of Haliburton over 40
years ago there was still a “local” phone company and an operator that
connected you, but only after you asked to be connected with “Dixie4973” for local calls or you had to ask
to be connected to the Bell operator for those crazy long distance calls to “the
city”.
It was a big day when we moved into the “Bell” phase and had the
stylish Black dial phone that weighed at least 15 pounds… and had direct
dialing with no operators for the local calls.
My Grandmother lived in Germany and calling oversees had a
launch sequence similar in complexity to launching a nuclear warhead, with
similar cost. If I remember correctly
you had to call the local operator and ask to be connected to the overseas operator
you than provided that operator with the phone # country and city of the party you
wanted to reach, than you hung up the phone and waited. If you were lucky, 10
minutes later, the phone would ring and in a perfect world the operator would
connect you. And on a good day you were able
to understand the person at the other end through all the static and delays, other times you may
as well have been calling Neptune.
My folks than opened
a business in a wilderness park about 30 miles further north and phone
lines had yet to make the journey that far into the boonies. The “gatehouse” had 50 foot antenna and a “radio
phone” which while incredibly expensive had terrible reception and reliability,
so for the most part we were simply without a phone in the summer months unless
we drove for 40 minutes to civilization.
When numbers warranted and Bell finally brought the phone
lines up to the park, we were in for a new adventure called “the party line” and no this was not a 900 #
with conversations starting with “what are you wearing?” This meant that 4 households
shared the same phone line. I believe
our ring was 3 short 1 long. Let’s not forget that this was before the
arrival of cellphones, texting and the internet. So guess how the teenagers
communicated? 4 households sharing one phone line was less that optimal. It did
improve your dexterity though, we became experts of slowly and quietly lifting the
receiver so you could eaves drop on said teenagers conversations without being
detected. It worked well until Mom
discovered what we were up to. Yes this is what we did for entertainment back
in the day.
Big technological advances were: the push button phone, touch tone dialing, and
the answering machine! The possibilities seemed endless! All that exciting change and growth and now…it’s
good bye!? Yes it’s time… But now I’m
curious what my son will write in 40 years about the first mobile phone
he used, and this crazy thing his Dad had called a Blackberry. But he’ll never
know the joy of eavesdropping on the party line…
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