We’re getting into that time of year now when, in the past,
people made a big thing about picking up the phone to catch up with friends and
family, near and far.
Not so much, anymore, since technology allows folks, no matter where they are, to
keep track of each other 365 days of the year…for better or for worse.
I’ll let you decide.
Social media reigns and almost everyone, both young and old
is tied in.
No more having to pick up the phone to see what Aunt Sadie
is up to with her knitting club.
Today Aunt Sadie is updating her Facebook status from
Cancun, where she’s posting pictures of herself “knitting” on the beach with a
couple of guys named Manny and Jose.
Cell phones, or mobile phones, or smart phones, as they are
more accurately referred to these days, are everywhere and they have slowly but
surely replaced the landline phone as our primary means of communication.
Where mobile communications used to be a utility of
convenience to be found mostly on the road, grocery store, beach or in the
middle of a crowded movie theatre so you could tell your best friend who you
saw with whom on the road, grocery store or beach, I’m sure most of you now
find yourself sitting in the comfort of your living room, chatting away,
texting or pursuing the latest advancements in car deodorizers on this little techno
nugget, while your poor old corded or cordless phone is sitting forlornly to
the side adjusting to life as a paper weight.
However, the thing that bugs me about mobile phones, no
matter how smart they are, is that the sound quality is still a bit
lacking. More often than not you feel as
if you’re talking to an inhabitant of Mars.
And the thing is, over the last couple of decades, the sound
quality on landlines had just evolved to
the point that no matter where in the world your call originated, the person jabbering
in your ear sounded as if they were actually in the next room…which, granted,
depending on with whom you were speaking, could be a little creepy.
I guess you have to be of a “certain age” to appreciate that kind of acoustic advancement….especially
when it came to long distance.
Or to even know what long
distance even is.
Once, there was a time when making a long distance call had
some meaning to it.
It was momentous.
Families gathered to pass the phone around on a Sunday
evening when rates were at their lowest. They chatted up Grandma and Grandpa,
half way across the country, or you called that nice young lady you met in that
hotel bar in Wichita, years before, who gave you her number and suggested you
keep in touch, which you did, because you thought it was the polite thing to
do.
Sunday evening was also the appointed time to speak to parents
when we were away at school…and you swore you could hear the kitchen timer ticking
off the minutes in the background.
Weekday calls were off the table, even in the event of
death, even your own…however, requests for organ donation were allowed…if
absolutely necessary…and it couldn’t hold until the evening rates came into
effect.
Sure, long distance was expensive, but even so, you felt as
if you were getting your money’s worth judging by the level of hissing you
heard on the line. The more extraneous background noise the better, because it indicated
just how far your voice was traveling through a long, long maze of wire and telephone
poles in order to get to where it was going...be it across the river or across
the ocean.
Shouting into the phone, just to be heard, was often
required and if you were lucky to get one of those connections that echoed back
to you, you imagined your voice bouncing around in the middle of a prairie, scaring
off cowboys and coyotes alike.
People even bragged on their long distance calls, back
then…but not today. Today calling across the country is as common as calling down
the street for a pizza.
And whether you’re calling Hoboken or Hong Kong, everyone
sounds the same…not a hiss or a hum to be found.
Kids in college call their parents five times a day just to report a sneeze, no
matter what part of the country they find themselves.
Old friends are never more than a text message away.
Everyone’s connected by technology and phones, smart and
dumb alike…the phones I mean.
Although…..
So I guess it’s a good thing.
But it’s odd to think that younger generations will never
grasp what it was like to be disconnected.
That being friends meant more than being on a list shared
with 500 other “friends”.
When communicating actually meant interacting, beyond 140
characters slipped in among countless other bits of information and witticism on
Twitter.
When the words “long
distance calling”, stirred excitement and anticipation.
It was a rarity…and relationships were all the more special because
of it.
Okay…gotta go answer a text from that guy who sold me that
pair of sneakers a few years ago.
We said we’d keep in touch….
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