If you’re there, please pick up!
By Helen Antoniak
I graduated from high school in1966 so it’s time for our fiftieth reunion. I need to contact my classmates. Half a century ago, communication was simple. Back then, we could either call or send a letter. All I needed was a phone number or an address. Both were easy to find in the white pages of what we used to call a phone book. This book was usually located near the telephone.
Phones had rotary dials. They were tethered to the wall by a cord. Phones were connected to other phones by wires strung along telephone poles. All the phones in the world were connected to each other by what I called the “World Wide Web.”
We did not own phones. We rented them from the Bell Telephone Company, a monopoly which we, not so affectionately, called “Ma Bell.” But we did own our televisions back then. TVs, as we called them, were large consoles located in our living rooms. Television programs were transmitted through the air. Antennas on our roofs received the broadcasts and wires brought the signals to our TVs. The signals were magically converted into black and white images which we watched for our edification and entertainment.
We talked on our phones. We watched our TVs. That is just what we did. That was communication back then. Things are not as simple as they were fifty years ago.
Now, I find myself poised at the intersection of my fiftieth reunion and cyberspace. Technology has advanced exponentially. I am thrust into a brave new digital world.
Through the ages, visionaries like Leonardo Da Vinci, saw the future. I am also a visionary. Decades ago, I drew a series of pictures showing a telephone gradually morphing into a television. A phone transforming into a TV? This was beyond bizarre. It was absurd. It was ridiculous.
Here is how it happened. First, our government wouldn’t let “Ma Bell” be a monopoly anymore. We bought phones instead of renting them. Rotary dials gave way to touch tone and speed dialing. Cordless phones were invented. Our phones were still tethered to the wall, but we could use the handset with more freedom.
Speaking of more freedom, remote controls allowed us to change TV channels without getting off the couch.
Black and white TVs were replaced by color ones.
Cables were strung along telephone poles so our TV’s got more channels and better reception.
We could not only buy our phones, but answering machines as well. My first one cost $200. At the time, it was such a novelty that I wrote an article entitled “An Answering Device with Hang-ups.”
It was very important that your electronic answer be upbeat and pleasant because you wanted the caller to leave a message. “Hello I am not home right now so please leave your name and number and I will call you back as soon as possible. Thanks for calling and have a nice day!”
Answering machines went down in price, they became so popular that it was unusual not to have your call answered. People began using their answering devices to screen their calls when they were home! They didn’t want a phone call to interrupt the television program they were watching. A caller might try to get around this electronic screener by pleading. “If you’re there, please pick up!”
In this era of technological advances, wireless phones were invented. We called these mobile devices “cell phones.” Towers sprang up which sent our phone calls through the air just like TV signals.
Just as I was one of the first to own an answering machine, I was a cell phone “pioneer.” I could call any phone from my cell phone. People could call me from their landlines or cell phones. The only problem was my calls cost 35cents a minute. I was not long winded because 35 cents was a lot of money back then.
As time passed, the gigantic room-filling computers of government and big business were joined in the technological line-up by personal computers which people brought into their homes. These computers had screens like televisions but they were not televisions. Eventually, some clever person came up with the idea of connecting computers to phone lines. The World Wide Web of phone lines I referred to earlier became the “Internet.”
Technology advanced to the point where “email” became a popular means of communication. Imagine that! Folks were using phone lines to communicate. They procured email addresses. Messages were free and easy. Email was so easy that people created several email addresses to separate junk mail or “Spam” from personal mail.
At the same time that computers were becoming more compact and mobile, cell phones were becoming “smarter.” These wireless communication devices acquired screens and more and more computer-like features. Users did not need to talk, they could simply use their cell phones to “text” each other. “Caller ID” allowed users to see who was calling and let calls go to their mobile device’s “voice mail.”
Computers, like the cell phones, could be connected to the internet wirelessly. Recently, the distinction between mobile phones, personal computers, laptops, tablets, kindles and TVs blurred completely when AT&T purchased Direct TV. Now my classmates do not answer my call because they are watching TV on their smart phones.
I have decided that, when I am organizing our 100th reunion, I will mail the invitations using my “forever” stamps.