Communications Breakdown

Once upon a time, when I was a wee little nipper, not everyone had a tele-phone.

Matter of fact, a lot of people didn't. Our family didn't, and neither did most of our neighbors, so it wasn't a big deal, since we didn't have anyone to call anyway. But we had our networks, before anyone even thought of the term. There was the Grange Hall, the cracker barrel down to Fennerman's General Store and Mercantile, for the grown-ups there was the First Chance/Last Chance Tavern where I used to sell the empty pop bottles I collected in my Radio Flyer,  the ladies caught up on (or more likely started)  the latest gossip at Estella's Tonsorial Parlor and Beauty Emporium, and the old farts had the IOOF which wasn't exactly the same as the Odd Fellows lodge.

Oh, Fennerman had a "business" tele-phone, which he always explained it as being, whenever someone wanted to use it. He took one of the spittoons and put it on the counter so that everyone who wanted to try it had to drop in a nickle.  Funny, how folks quit askin.
But well, most of us got along quite well without one a them new fangled gizmos.

It wasn't long before these here fellers was a goin along all the streets and a stringin up these wires and then hookin 'em up to these little metal boxes on folks houses. And then this City Slicker in a Sears-Roebuck catalog suit come round, a tellin everyone how important it was to comm-yun-e-cate. Shucks, he twern't a tellin us anything we didn't already know, 'taint like there was any secrets in a little town in southern Ohio in the forties. 'Sides, if it were something of import, Walter Wolf, the police chief, had a tele-phone and it didn't take long to run on down there to the jail and wake him up.

My daddy, bein a man of the cloth, decided that he should have one a them tele-phones put in the parlor since he had to minister to the needs of the infirm and give them communion in their homes, 'cause they couldn't make it to the church. Now, my daddy never did figure out why some of his parishioners wanted communion so often. Me and my big sister thought it was funny - ya see, my daddy didn't believe in spirits  ('cept the Holy ones he was always preachin about) so he used grape juice for communion. Till we started fillin his silver flask with some of the stuff we found in bottles behind the First Chance/Last Chance. But, that's another story.

And so, we got us a tele-phone. Made out of oak and was nailed to the parlor wall. Had this nifty crank that you turned to get the operator. Our ring was two longs and two shorts. But me and my sister always picked up the ear-thing just to see who was talking to who. Which, amidst my reminiscing, brings up a point. Back then, folks answered their tele-phones. Even if it was (like me and my big sister) just to eavesdrop. "Hello" was soon to become a household word.

Well, one day, in the mid fifties, my daddy moved us to a very big city where we lived in a very small house. And, not only did it have a tele-phone, we even had our own number: Eastbrook 657. It was one of those modern kind where you didn't need to crank up a cranky (the stories I could tell you) operator. It has this nifty round thing with letters and numbers on it. Turn it just the right number of times and you could comm-yun-e-cate with folks all over. Soon as it started making these buzzing sounds, sure enough, someone would say, "Hello?"

Yup. Folks actually answered their tele-phones.

I was fascinated with this, the latest in communications technology, and even though it was absolutely forbidden, (Ma Bell was more to be feared than the Mafia or even Senator McCarthy) it wasn't long before I took it apart. I just wanted to see what was inside it. How it worked.

The (dreaded) Phone Company didn't understand my innocent curiosity and I was sent to the Sol A. Wood Juvenile Detention Center. There, I was told that I should resist my evil ways;  that communicating with The Lord should be the most important thing in my life.

Funny, though, as they never did give me His number.

I just couldn't contain my curiosity about tele-phones and so I learned everything I could about that secretive brick building where all the lines were connected together with Strowger switches. And that the back door wasn't always locked. And oh! the things I found in the trash cans! Yes, I was one of the original phone phreaks.

Ah, well, time marches on and progress (?) follows. And in the late fifties, something happened that would forever change what Ma Bell had in mind - to use the tele-phone to comm-yun-e-cate. I had just set up one of the first speaker (hands-free) tele-phones using parts stolen from the Western Electric junk yard in the dead of night. Some of the ham operators heard about it and wanted to come over and see it work. So they said. Actually it was to  mooch my stock of Carling's Black Label and Cheez-its.
So, I spun the black dial, and this is what I got:

"This is an electronic secretary, automatically answering the tele-phone for ___ ____ Window Cleaning.  (Please leave the proverbial message after the infernal beep). Aaarrgghhh.

And so began an era where people do not answer their phones. After all, in this hectic society, folks can not be expected to sit by their desks waiting for someone to call. America was becoming mobile.

In 1986, the cellular tele-phone system became operational. People could carry their tele-phones with them, so that they could answer - say "Hello" no matter where they were. But, for some reason, they do not. You cal your granny to wish her a happy birthday and what do you get?

"Welcome to the AT&T wireless voice messaging system..."

Some times I wonder. Maybe the good old days really were.