TheBanyanTree: I Know Who You Are

[Margaret R. Kramer]

I grew up when party lines were still common.  Party lines were shared phone
lines, even though the phone numbers were different, by families or
individuals.  For example, two neighbors might be on a party line.  The
phone rings in one person’s house and they answer the call.  The second
person might want to make a call, but when they pick up the phone, they hear
the other person’s conversation, so, if they’re polite, they would hang up,
and wait to use the phone when the other person’s call was completed.  A
party line was cheaper than an individual line.

I grew up when there were no touch tone phones.  Rotary dial was the way to
go, so all our phones were dial phones.  Back in my day, a family would only
have one phone, usually located in the kitchen.  As the technology improved,
extensions became popular.  However, the phone company would charge for each
extension, which made having multiple phones in a home kind of expensive.
But that technological advance made it possible to have phones in more than
one place.

The phone company delivered the phones to our home.  At that time, you could
not buy a phone at the store and install it yourself.  The lines were hard
wired into the home and it took a phone technician to hook up the phones.
He would place a small card on the phone with the phone number.  If you were
wealthy enough to have an unlisted number, then the card would be blank.

It was a big deal when touch tone phones came in.  My dad bought them and
when no one was around, we would use the tones to compose catchy little
tunes, trying not to dial a real number.  Oh, by the way, my first phone
number was SPRING 7-3425 or SP7-3425 which morphed into 777-3425.

The operator would have to dial long distance numbers for us.  It was a
major thing to call someone long distance and very expensive.  There were no
800 numbers.  For a long time, the Twin Cities was area code 612 and now we’
re broken down into several area codes, so my old number now would be
651-777-3425.

One of the most amazing advances of all is that now when we move, for
example as Ray and I have, from one part of St Paul to another, we don’t
have to change phone numbers.  We don’t have to change cell phone numbers if
we change companies and/or phones.  Our phone number is key to so many
things, it was great to keep it as is, and only change our address.

Phones have evolved from voice communication to data communication.
Remember when dial-up was almost the only way to get on the internet?  Now,
most people use DSL or cable for their internet connections.  Land line
phones have almost no value as more and more people use cell phones.

But, for me, the biggest advance in telephone technology, is caller ID.  I
didn’t have it on our land line phone at our old home.  But this time I
decided to add it as I like having it on my cell phone and my phone at work.

I was brought up to answer the phone whenever it was ringing.  We didn’t
have answering machines when I was young.  The phone rang until we answered
it or the caller hung up.  If you missed a call, well, too bad.  Then
affordable answering machines were developed and voice mail became a “must
have” tool at work and also at home.  A person doesn’t need to answer the
phone in order to get a message.  Caller ID came in at that time, too, and
people began screening their calls.

Because I was raised to answer the phone, I didn’t think Caller ID was
necessary.  I answered the phone whenever the ringing bell summoned me.  I
thought it was rude to screen my calls.  I thought everyone should get an
equal chance of having their call answered by me.  I couldn’t let the phone
ring.  I had to answer it.  Increasingly, I was held hostage by sales
pitches, Nigerians asking for money, and other weird calls.  These calls
were like voice spam.  Even though we’re on the “do not call” list, and our
sales calls have dropped dramatically since then, there are enough weirdo
calls coming in, probably because we do have a listed number, that I was
tired of being a slave to the phone.

So the caller ID is now on our land line phone.  At first, Ray and I still
grabbed the phone whenever it rang and whoever was calling, but after a
while, we realized, hey, it’s OK NOT to answer if it’s a number we can’t
identify or a person we don’t know or if it’s the Minnesota Orchestra
begging for money.  When the phone rings now, instead of grabbing the
receiver, we look first at the phone’s screen, and if the ID is some weirdo
in Nigeria wanting to know our bank account number in order to deposit some
massive fortune into it, then we don’t answer.  The phone rings three times,
then voicemail does our dirty work for us, and usually the nasty Nigerians
don’t leave a message.

It’s great not to be caught off guard by some sales pitch, when I have to
say, “I’m not interested, no thanks,” and hang up before they get too far
into it.  It’s great to say, “Hello.  How are YOU?” to a person who really
matters to me.

Margaret R. Kramer
margaretkramer at comcast.net

War does not determine who is right - only who is left.
~Bertrand Russell