I am getting up there in terms of years and one thing that I am glad of is the technology has made things so much simpler. Why I can remember calling on my grandmother’s party line to talk to a friend. When the operator answered I could either ask her to call Hal Martin (My friend’s dad) or say please ring 324, and presto my friend or someone would answer the phone. Everybody answered the phone in those days. Not only was there no chance that you had to worry about a warranty salesman, a politician or even an encyclopedia salesman being on the line, but rather someone you wanted to talk to. If you beat whoever was in the house to the phone, you might even get to answer a long-distance call from Aunt Pearl or another relative who lived a few states away. Yep, long distance calls set the entire house on active alert back then!
Yes, that is the way that it used to be. Today, if you need to make a phone call, you need to remember ten numbers even for local calls in some areas. Most folks do not think that is too bad as you just push buttons on your landline phone. There is no longer a need to use a rotary dial and wait for the dial to return so that you can dial the next number. We must applaud the modern world for such a time saver. Of course, with all your friends and neighbors, you need to load the phone with the numbers you use a lot. In addition, many people have cell phones where you also need to harbor your ten-digit numbers. Then just pushing on the number a single time sends the call merrily on its way.
After dialing regardless of the phone, you use, you hope the recipient recognizes those ten numbers. If he/she does not they most likely will not answer the phone. If you are lucky the recipient will wait to see if you leave a message. If the calling party does, and the voice is recognized then the call might be returned. If nothing like that does not occur, then it is obvious that the caller was a scam artist, or perhaps a poor warranty salesman who really would like to talk to anyone even if they do not listen to his printed spiel. It can be even worse in a situation where you are at the airport and your cell phone is dead. How do you make a call then? Assuming that you are old enough to recall them, you look for a pay phone. Pay phones used to be all over the place, especially in an airport.
People used to make careers of checking the return coin pockets to see if there were any coins therein. I had a friend who used to get his date money that way.
Good luck in finding a pay phone today.
Finally, it must be remembered that what was modern yesterday is not modern today, and what is modern today will not be modern tomorrow. Everything changes over time as we all have experienced. Therefore, I would suspect that around 2275, phones will be obsolete as we know them. Instead, everyone will have a very tiny object placed in an arm that will enable you to make a call by sending a message to it by whistling “My Momma Done told Me” or “Let it Be” (or perhaps a song you pick out yourself). That will wake up the unit and you can handle it from there as you do with Alexia. That is, you would simply say “Archie, let me talk to Eloise!” If Eloise recognizes your calling number and is certain that you are not selling a car warranty, she would answer. The two of you would then have a nice conversation. The added bonus being that you would not have a heavy phone in your hand which you would put down when finished, and then have to search for it later. The only downside would be is that you will have to download the various numbers to the unit. By 2275 the numbers will probably be up to fifteen for each person. However, as we all know the modern world is never perfect.
Besides by 2301, they may have figured out a way around the numbers game!
Barry Evans is a columnist for Villages-News.com
