Back in the Day - The Land Line

When talking was a big deal.

While waiting for the bus to arrive, we were standing in the front hallway where we have an antique phone on table as a decoration/dust collector.

Photo by Mike Meyers on Unsplash

She started to “dial” and play with it - which is fine, but then she asked me about the letters mean on the display. I had to explain that some companies might have phone numbers with letters so this way you knew what letters to dial. Or better yet even: way way way back in the day before Dad was born they had numbers that also had letters too so there’s that.

I told her that some companies would have phone numbers like 12-MONEY or 52-FLUSH and she loved that and asked why we don’t have a number like that I told her it’s because we’re not a business.¹

But then she realized that she could spell her name with the dial and I swear if we hadn’t heard the bus rumbling down the road to stop at the door we could have stayed there with Dad’s telephone history as today’s class.

I told her that back in the day we had only one phone. Usually in a common part of the home. Sometimes a front hall, or the kitchen. Mostly the kitchen, if I remember correctly with that long cord that would get twisted in knots somehow no matter how hard you tried not to.

I then told her that later on we had two phones in the house: one downstairs and one upstairs - usually in the bedroom for those dreaded 2 am calls that were never good. ever.

When I was a teen the rich kids had their own line and I thought that was just ridiculous. Who would need their own phone line? That would take the fun out of it when you answered and you had no idea who was calling. Not a clue. It could be somebody trying to sell you something, your best friend or worst of all: your school. Those calls were the worst.

If the call was not for you, you would do what we all do: hold the receiver to your chest and then yell at the top of your lungs the name of whomever the call was for. God forbid you put the phone down and go find the person via a quieter method. Nope. It was always with the yelling.

Then came the question: If it wasn’t for you - did you put the receiver down on desk and leave or did you talk to the caller until the person arrived that they wanted to talk to? Sometimes you would end up talking to the caller more than the person they intended to call.

I miss the land line. There was something more physical and “real” about it. There actually was another person at the end of the line. If you were home you answered, and if you weren’t home, you were not home. Period. The phone just rang and rang and told your friends that you were not home. It was a very simple system that worked just fine.

If the phone rang late at night? Nobody called late night past about 10. At the very latest and if they did it better be an emergency.

And if your teacher called? “Sorry, wrong number”

Let your fingers do the walking,

TH and Co.

1. Unless you call my writing here a business. just call us at 523-TIDY today to subscribe!