Who among us remembers this wonderful object—the rotary phone? From the early 40s, perhaps earlier, to the late 90s, teens lived and sighed by their house phones, waiting for the next bit of juicy gossip or their crush to jar the atmosphere with its loud clanging. If you remember this phone and that sound, you surely remember your eagerness to drop everything just to find out who is calling, and for whom because that phone didn’t belong to you. Often you sat near the phone because, well, if you were waiting even wishing for a call the phone was anchored to the wall or connected to a short line in the wall. It was shared by everyone in your home, and since the beginning of its invention though it was mostly phased out by the 80s, you also shared that phone line, appropriately termed, party line, with neighbors as well. But no matter, it was always exciting to hear that jangling cry and finding out who was on the other end.
But everything changes, and hardly has anything changed more drastically, and as quickly as the phone. By 1998, even though most still retained their home phones, 36% of the population now had a cell phone. Today 20 years later virtually everyone including homeless people have a cell phone they carry with them everywhere. But still even then people retained the joy of receiving calls compared with today where most Americans are utilizing their phones in multiple ways to ignore or fend off both the calls and the texts. The phones even assist you in ignoring those you used to be excited to hear from by offering up a variety of lie buttons that you can press to relay to your friend or family member to end the annoyance of their intrusion into your hectic life. Most of you will defend this service you consider vital, citing work and other pressing matters that should not be intruded upon but let’s be honest, if you were that busy you would shut off your phone instead of screening your messages, in which case all intrusions would be put on ice until the meeting and/or crisis has ended.
So when I see this phone it brings back fond memories for me. Who doesn’t remember waiting by the phone in hopes that the next call may be for you? I was very little but I can even still remember my mom, siblings and I circling my grandmother while she proudly displaying her new green rotary phone which nicely blended with the newly painted mint green walls of her living room, which also for some reason brought back that wistful or faraway look I would sometimes see in the eyes of my grandparents and other adults when we talked about newfangled and change. Sometimes they would slip and reveal that change isn’t always good, which as a kid I could never understand. Who wouldn’t want new and better and change? However today as I gaze upon the majestically stylish rotary phone I can’t help but long for the days that when the phone rang, you were anxiously rushing to discover who’s on the other end seeking me out instead of frantically trying to dismiss the call for another time, which sadly for a few never comes again.
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