I take too much for granted. I now realize my experiences aren’t necessarily the experiences of others. My thoughts can parallel the thoughts of friends and family, but not always. With each successive generation things a few of us have taken for granted fade into obscurity.

Thus it is with communication devices.

I vividly remember the first telephone that was in our home when I was a child. It was a large wall hanger that had a crank on its right side and an earpiece on the left. The mouthpiece we spoke into was on a stem protruding from the center. The ringer consisted of two bells at the top of the oak box with a clapper between them.

I had to stand on a chair in order to be able to lift the earpiece from its cradle and speak into the apparatus. It didn’t seem all that odd because It was all I had ever known.

As time and technology evolved, that phone gave way to a much smaller and simpler device that sat on a special shelf built into the wall down the hall. It was black and had a receiver that sat on its top. I could lift the receiver from its cradle, the operator would ask, “Number, please,” and I would tell her what number I’d like for her to connect me with. The numbers of everyone in our county were listed in a little book beside the name of the person I wanted to connect with. We were sent a new book every year with updated names, numbers and addresses listed in alphabetical order.

As time passed that phone was replaced with one that had a little wheel, or what was called a rotary dial, on its face. The little wheel had ten finger sized holes in it. Each hole corresponded with a number, one through nine. The last hole centered over a zero. It was fairly simple. Place a finger into a numbered hole and move the wheel clockwise until it reached a stop. Then release the wheel and it would spin back into place over the corresponding numbered hole. I would spin the dial until I completed the sequence of numbers required to connect with the person I wished to speak with.

That was the dial system. It operated on a pulse that was created as the wheel turned.

As time progressed the dial system was replaced by the push button or tone system. The phone looked similar, but in place of the rotary wheel there were little square buttons to press. Each button had a number. However, two additional buttons were added. An asterisk and a pound button. Technology was evolving. When pressed, each button would emit a different pitched tone. Cleaver kids learned to punch out tunes with the buttons.

Soon after came the cordless phone, answering machine, caller ID, call forwarding, and call blocking.

Just when I thought it couldn’t evolve anymore, along came cellphones. Little computers in our hands, I call them. Facetime. Telemarketers. Texting, and more. It took me a while to give in to texting. Facetime? It enabled me to visit with grandchildren that lived hundreds of miles away.

The latest gadget at our house is the iWatch. My wife has one. She has become Dick Tracy for those old enough to remember who he was. I’m still holding out on that one. I am partial to my Bulova. It doesn’t vibrate or light up in the middle of the night. It doesn’t tell me I need to stand or that I’ve reached my step-goal for the day. Its hands just slowly move around in circles like a good watch should.

You may wonder why-on-earth I am dragging up all these things about the evolution of phones. It’s quite simple, really. I have grown to accept the transitions phones have made and what they have become today. I remember the old but accept the new. However, there are people that think today’s phone systems are all there ever was or ever will be. Take for example my nearly seventeen-year-old granddaughter.

A few weeks ago she started a new job. She works at a gym doing first one thing and another. One of her duties is to work the front counter greeting gym members and enrolling new clients. She is a very bright young lady, if I may say so myself. She’s Tec savvy in ways that I am not, and she has taught me a lot tricks with some of these new gadgets.

The other day, after working at the gym a few weeks, one of her coworkers asked her to call someone and deliver a message. The lady gave her the number and the message that was to be relayed. Then she began to work on something else.

My granddaughter walked over to the phone sitting on the counter, looked at it a moment, punched in the phone number, and then lifted the receiver. There was a dial tone.

Hmmmmmm.

She put the receiver back on its cradle and looked at the phone again. The lady who had asked her to make the call happened to see her puzzled look. My granddaughter repeated the process again. Same result.

“I think there’s something wrong with this phone,” she mumbled.

The lady shook her head, no. “Do you not know how to use a landline?”

“I guess not. I’ve never used one before.”

“Seriously? You’ve never used a phone like this before?”

“No. I’ve seen them in the movies, but I’ve never had to use one. I just know how to use MY phone.”

She was trained that day.

It had never occurred to me that my own granddaughter had never used a landline phone before. And I had forgotten how long it had been since we had had one in our home. Even my daughter has never had a landline phone in the house where they live, so I guess it was inevitable that my granddaughter didn’t know how to use one. Times are changing.

I learned a valuable lesson this week. Never assume someone knows what you know, no matter how simple it is. We can all learn from each other.

Now I wonder how much things will change for my great grandchildren and the ones that follow after them.

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Rick Algood
October 19, 2019