The Evolution of Phone Calls
My mother was a telephone operator in the early 1940s. This was a career move for a young woman at the time, but she mainly took the job because she could work the 2pm-10pm shift. A life-long night owl, working the second shift meant she could be part of the Manhattan nightlife, dancing in the clubs where the Big Bands played jazz and swing, then sleep until noon before work the following day. I can only imagine that this time in her life was every bit as glamorous as it sounds. She met my father at a USO dance in 1942, which put an end to her carousing.
Mom retained her telephone voice and etiquette her entire life. In most instances she was the epitome of patience and tolerance but one of her big pet peeves was with people who permitted, even encouraged, an ill-equipped child to answer the phone. I was not bestowed the privilege until I could speak clearly and politely, accurately record all pertinent details of any message left, and understood never to divulge sensitive information (such as my mother is in the bathroom). In time, I also perfected my own telephone voice and professional protocol to go along with it, which thrilled every one of my employers in my early working years. I would have made an excellent receptionist.
The phone table in the dining room of our house was its own liminal space. Large enough to hold the phone, my mother’s ever-present ashtray, and a phone book (which was turned into a Christmas treeat the end of every year by folding the pages in half diagonally and spray painting the whole thing silver or gold), but not so large as to be in the way. There was a straight-backed chair on the left side and a smaller occasional table bearing a bowl of plastic grapes on the right. The phone connected my mother to her sisters across the country, and my father to his golf and fishing buddies. The sister’s calls could take hours, while arranging golf dates took only a matter of minutes.
Next to the phone was a stack of scratch paper (I don’t think anyone calls it that anymore) salvaged from the backs of old envelopes, unimportant letters, and junk mail. This paper was for recording messages but also held the doodles my mother mindlessly drew while on the phone. Happy flowers and mesmerizing circles, mostly, but one time she drew a simple portrait of me. I wish I would have kept that. Hanging from the side of the phone table was a long and narrow phone and address book, in which the names were recorded in ink, but the contact information was written in pencil. My mother was nothing if not practical and efficient.
The phone became more important to me during my elementary school years. My best friend lived a few miles away and we spoke on the phone almost every evening. First from the phone table in the dining room, I later moved to the phone in the hallway for privacy. I convinced my mother I needed my own phone line, so I wouldn’t tie up the main line and she agreed on my fourteenth birthday. The only catch was my line had to be a party line, because they were less expensive.
Every now and again, I would pick up my phone to find someone else already engaged in conversation. It didn’t take me long to figure out that the other line belonged to our next-door neighbors. We didn’t know them very well, just their names, that their children were grown, and they spent a lot of time at their beach house on the Gulf of Mexico. I also learned, through eavesdropping on the party line, that the Mrs. was having a lesbian affair. This was an exciting occurrence for a fifteen-year-old who hadn’t experienced much of the world. I wasn’t specifically aware of the significance of this in her life, but I could hear the inflection of sadness in her voice when she spoke with her lover. She sounded so empty and forlorn. Without realizing it at the time, my heart broke for her. I stopped eavesdropping and never told anyone her secret. I’ve thought of her from time to time. I hope there were times when she was happy.
Once I got my driver’s license, my relationship with the phone cooled down a bit. I always kept a couple of spare quarters for the payphone, in case of emergency, although I’m not exactly sure who I would have called if there’d been one. Of the phone numbers I had memorized in my head, which would be the one to come and rescue me? In hindsight, it’s good I never had to put that to the test. When my own daughter began driving, I would give her my cell phone, in case of emergency. My cell plan only came with a half hour per month of call time, so she also received a stern warning about what constituted an emergency. We’ve come a long way in a short period, that’s for sure.
Memorizing phone numbers was an important skill, before cell phones. I still remember the phone number for my mother’s house but check my contacts every time I put my daughter down as my ‘in case of emergency’ person. I never dial her number; I tell my phone to do it for me.
Long distance calls were expensive well into the 1990s, causing people to get creative when it came to gaming the system. When my sister and brother-in-law were dating, he was still on active duty in the Army. When he was away, he would often make a person-to-person call, to himself, at our house. This was my sister’s cue to then call him back at a pre-arranged number so the call didn’t cost him an arm and a leg at the pay phone. The first time I answered that call, I promptly told my father what they were up to. It wasn’t that I didn’t like my sister’s boyfriend, although my father wasn’t too happy about him hanging around. But he was serious about my sister, and she felt the same about him, and I didn’t like THAT very much at all. In my defense, I was ten years old. They’ve been married for 52 years this year, and I ‘ve been forgiven for this, and the several other stunts I pulled, trying to get rid of him. I used that same person-to-person call trick when I was engaged to my daughter’s father, and he was working out of town. Thanks, Gordon.
Phones, and how we use them, have evolved quickly and I’ve never been a fan. My first answering machine was a gift from my daughter. She was very pregnant at the time and wanted to be able to let me know when she went into labor. I begrudgingly agreed to set it up for this purpose. As for call waiting, I refused to add that as an option, until it no longer became optional, and now I just ignore it. I barely want to talk on the phone to one person, let alone two calls at once. On the rare occasion a second call comes in while I’m on the first, I’m likely to hang up on both calls rather than figure out which button to press.
Cordless phones gave us the freedom to move around the house while still within reaching distance, and the invasion of cell phones meant that we couldn’t get far enough away to escape a call. We no longer ‘miss’ someone’s call because they now know that we knew who was calling and intentionally ignored them. My mother taught me to allow ten rings before hanging up, to give the recipient time to get to the phone. It takes an eternity of 30-seconds for a phone to ring ten times and that’s if voice mail doesn’t pick up after the fifth ring.
As the cell phone evolved into the smart phone, text messages, and even emails now carry the expectation of an immediate response. By text messages I mean messages from every social media app that’s connected to the little mobile computer in our pocket or bag. In case you hadn’t noticed, your phone really isn’t a phone anymore. It’s a device that allows you to communicate with anyone, anytime, anywhere in ever-changing ways, that also happens to make and accept phone calls.
We’re more connected than ever before and this alone is a marvel. What I miss, though, is thoughtful communication. Letter writing is a lost art. During the lockdown period of the pandemic, I began exchanging old-fashioned letters with a friend. We sent them through text messages, but we wrote as if we’d waited weeks to receive a handwritten letter that contained interesting news from far away. We talked about the state of our individual worlds; banal observations such as which trees were blooming, if the weather was behaving normally and any excitement, like a bit of human interaction. We read each letter slowly, several times, considering our responses carefully as we measured our words in return. We even adopted names from another era, calling ourselves Fern and Miriam. I wish we’d have continued, but the world reopened, we went back to our lives and only touch base through quick messages now and again.
All thing considered, I’m grateful that I’m able to easily reach out to my friends and family whenever I want. I just need to remember to be patient and give them the 21st century equivalent of ten rings when awaiting their reply.
I can’t remember the last time I’ve seen a Christmas tree made from a spray-painted phone book. Or spoken with an Operator and that feels like a loss, right now.
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