Our first phone was installed when I was 3 but I remember it.
No more running next door to make a phone call or receive one.
It was one with 2 pieces...you spoke in the speaker part and listened with the the ear phone.
When you lifted the handset, a very pleasant, non-computer voice said 'Number Please.
We had a 4-party line and if we were on too long, we heard about it from the other parties...and then we hung up fast.
Later, we got a circular number dial phone and I thought that was really 'up there'. The word high-tech did not come into being yet.
When Jeff was on vacation from college on Chanukah, he said we're all going to Sears and he was going to buy us a 'push button' phone.
Well, I was against this but I went along. That meant he had to un-install the one we had and re-install the new one.
I really thought I would never have telephone service again...but Jeff and Allen worked on this project and when they were finished, we had a dial tone and I knew we were back in business.
Now I have 3 phones...land phone, remote and a cell phone, which Jeff and Donna have charged for me every year....and every year I have tons of minutes on it ... but I forget to use it. I just don't like the quality of it....seems like a toy phone to me.
The phone I have in my bedroom is really snazzy....it's an 'answering machine' which I think is a miracle in itself.
I have 'caller ID' which interrupts me if I'm using the phone.
I also have a 'speaker phone'....and an ID feature which lets me screen calls if I want to.
It also tells me what time the caller has tried to reach me and the day.
I think that even Alexander Graham Bell would be overwhelmed by the wonderfulness that he invented.
What a sensationl invention. And one other feature, I get to use a web-cam and to see and talk to my kids every Sunday when they give me computer lessons...all the things I screwed up with during the week. Because of the phone I have high-speed internet service...all for reading ythe silly jokes.
I'm not complaining...I JUST LOVE IT1
1 comment:
ah yes, where would we be without this convenience ....
my first phone number was 49...phone was wood and hung on the wall...no dial..had a crank to signal the operator..different turns meant different things to her..
we were lucky because we only had a "party line" for just a little while then we had a "private line"..that was big stuff let me tell you
the "central office" was right down the street from where I lived..when I got old enough to be able to walk to town for the mail or an ice cream cone, I always stopped in to see the operator..the key board was in her house and i loved watching her work it...she even showed me how to "listen in" with out being detected...there could have been a law about that! lol lol
anyway, one of my first jobs was at a large company...they eventually asked me to sub on their "plug and key" switch board...wanna know if i ever listened in on any conversations between a boss and his lady (who wasn't his wife!!!)??
after 53 year together, my parents moved out of the house they had been in for 49 of those years..the last two numbers of their last phone number ended in: 49!
things do come full circle - don't they?
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