We had a light blue kitchen wall phone exactly like the white one in your photos. More often than not, when it rang it made all of us jump. Would it be bad news? Was someone in trouble? Was I in trouble? (You get the sense of optimism I was surrounded by in my childhood.) Our favorite joke which my 3 siblings found infinitely hilariously was a hit piece on our mother. We’d love to play act this little skit: there was our sweet Selma, tired of catering to her (cute but let’s face it, annoying) kids all day, and by dinner, if we were in any way bitching about the food, she’d get really pissed. This was how it would go: if we complained or didn’t want to eat something she’d growl at all of us at the dinner table about our lack of appreciation and selfishness (she was not wrong). Just as she was about to lose it, the blue wall phone would ring. With what seemed like elastic arms she’d stretch across the room and answer it in the sweetest, most angelic voice, like you’d just reached the receptionist in heaven. Even my Mom laughed a little when we took turns playing her.
Growing up in the Seventies, the only phones we had were rotary dial. Our family had two: One was mounted on the wall of our kitchen, and the second was upstairs in my parent's bedroom. That's where you would go if you wanted to have "private" conversations, although of course nothing could prevent someone from silently picking up the downstairs kitchen phone to secretly eavesdrop. Silently picking up the other line to listen in to a sister's or brother's conversation became an art form. During the pandemic, I did a lot of re-watching of "old" TV shows, and one of the shows I binged was "My So-Called Life," which actually still holds up. This is a show about teenage life that, to my amazement all these years later, contains NO CELL PHONES. It just proved to me, yet again, that we can survive without them. But whether or not we want to is a different question.
It's not phones but phone numbers that matter to me. When my Dad passed away in 2020, canceling his phone account made my heart hurt. The number was the same one our family had for more than 50 years - the one that went on every form I filled out, carried me through teenaged angst, and bailed me out of trouble. By the same token, I still have a land line with the number my late husband and I had before he died - it was the same number his 3 kids grew up with. I now use my cell number exclusively, but I just can't bear to part with that part of the past.
Mar 17, 2023·edited Mar 17, 2023Liked by Sari Botton
I've been in love with the telephone since I was a toddler. I'm 70 now and I'm still a black belt telephone person.
I miss the days when we all knew each other's phone numbers and everybody called everybody up and we had time to talk on the phone. Now everybody's on internet speed with the attention span of a gnat-- everybody's texting tapping typing - obsessed with their cellular devices (which aren't really telephones anyway) and nobody calls anybody anymore. My phone hardly ever rings and when it does it's a spam call.
I'm lonely to talk on the phone!
And even when I finally do get to talk to someone, they don't have the stamina to stay on the phone very long and they always say " OHHH we've been on for blah blah blah minutes.. " And I'm like, " YEAH, AND???"
Whereas, in the old days that was nothing. Sometimes we would stay on for hours!
I remember when I was a teenager I would come home from school and do my homework and then after supper I would be on the phone talking and laughing with my friends and my father would keep coming in and out of the room annoyed that I was on the phone and say things like, "You just saw her in school today...you're going to see her at school tomorrow .. what could you POSSIBLY have to talk about???!!?"
For my 16th birthday, my mother gave me a pink princess phone that lit up in the dark!!! I treasured it and I loved the feeling of talking secretly in the dark on my magic illuminated phone!
Kids today don't know what they're missing. Not that they know how to even carry on a conversation or speak in full sentences (and don't get me started on abbreviations.. ).🙄
I wanted a princess phone, lucky you! I grew up in the 1970s wilds of the Colorado mountains. We had a party line. That means we shared our phone line with eight other families. Trying to call a girlfriend sometimes for teenage girl was very trying. But it was fun to secretly listen in on other people’s phone conversations. Until you got caught. ELO rocks!
I had a cheap, white phone with, if I remember correctly, the key pad on the middle of the phone itself, as opposed to the base it sat on when not in use. I got it in middle school and spent hours on it nearly every night talking to one of my crushes. When that finally (thank god) fizzled, I used it to spend hours every night talking to my best friend, who went to a different school from ninth grade on. We used to talk about everything and make grand proclamations along the lines of, Oh! I had a REVELATION today. (bwahahahahaha) It's also worth noting that our house phone was also my dad's business line, since he ran his contracting business out of our house, and there was only ever the one line. No call waiting or anything. So periodically, my mom or dad or one of my brothers would get on the line while we were talking and interrupt: "Asha, other people in this house would like to use the telephone..." It makes me laugh now to think about it. The thought of hours at a time on a phone now is HORRIFYING to me, even with that friend who I'm still best friends with after 38 years.
Growing-up in 1960s/70s New York City, we had two rotary dial phones. A yellow one was mounted to the wall in the kitchen while the other (ugly, salmon colored) was in mom's room. We moved there in 1967 and when my grandmother left in 1993, the same phones were still there. I think the kitchen cord was different, but the phones remained the same. I was also the last generation of the lettered exchange. My number began AU3--the AU stood for AUdubon--made me feel like a character in a John O'Hara novel.
I remember the first phone I got for my room. It had a cord and was a push button and pinkish - more like mauve. It wasn’t shaped like a traditional phone but was flatter and very modern looking. But it wasn’t very comfortable to use, especially for long phone calls, so then I got this hideous shoulder rest thingy that stuck onto the phone with adhesive tape. I would spend hours on my phone after dinner with my best friend. I would lay on my bed or floor, and we’d do our homework together, as if we were hanging out in person. I was definitely labeled the phone hog in my house and would often say “Hey can I call you back? My brother [or whoever] needs to use the phone.” And then when we had “call waiting”, and you’d hear the beep, you’d say “Can you hold on a sec? I’ve got call waiting, thanks.” And you’d click over to the incoming call, take the message, and then get back to your very important conversation. It amazes me how we all managed without cell phones, without being able to contact someone at a moment’s notice. Perhaps it bred some healthy independence.
Growing up, I was not allowed to have a phone in my room--but my friend had a translucent blue plastic phone (a 1990s classic) that I absolutely coveted. I also used to have a standing phone date with a friend once a week after Friends aired--once we got a cordless phone, this was a revolution because prior to it, I the only place I could have this conversation was sitting on our kitchen floor, as the phone was attached to the wall.
I definitely prefer texting--it's so much easier to be in touch, much lower stakes to tell someone you're thinking of them or send them something you think they'd like. But picking up the phone to call someone really is love.
Phones through the ages. Love it. Made me miss the old days. Life was so simple. Getting a busy signal meant I had to wait and try later which probably taught me to slow down, be patient. It was cause for celebration when my parents got the push button phone in a copper brown color. BTW, try Pokerface. It’s a modern day version of Columbo.
I live in a sparsely settled part of northern Vermont, where we STILL have n o cell service! My first cell phone was an old flip model. I took it with me when I was scheduled to do a reading at the U. of Michigan. About five minutes in, someone's bleepin cell phone began to ring. I glared daggers into the audience, but it kept on ringing And ringing. I should detour to say that I have been quite deaf for most of my adult life, so that even with hearing aids (if you have put off getting them, DON'T! Your life will change for the better), sound is rather ventriloquial for me.
You know the dénouement here. The phone ewas my own. I had never heard it ring before! Live and learn.
I remember my nana still had a rotary dial, when things started to go to touch-tones--a sea change. Because my family now lives in an old house with a vintage-y kitchen, my husband installed an 80s era wall-mounted phone with a long cord. I've even let my kids make prank calls on that phone--just once, because, of course, caller ID! It's like going back in time in my very own kitchen. (And then my amazing air fryer is like going to the future.) As for songs about phones and phone numbers, my writer friend David Giffels wrote an essay that explores the ideas of music, fame, and being from an Ohio town where you feel like nothing of the sort ever happens. Their phone exchange was 867, and so of course he and his fellow teenaged friends would prank call: 867-5309. Only recently did I realize my area in Maryland also has an 867 exchange. You know I'm going to have to make a prank call one of these days!
Ours was a black rotary dial on an 8-party line and a 3-digit phone number 208 in the late 40s. The real innovation was getting our first cell phone in a big bag in rural SE CO.
We had a light blue kitchen wall phone exactly like the white one in your photos. More often than not, when it rang it made all of us jump. Would it be bad news? Was someone in trouble? Was I in trouble? (You get the sense of optimism I was surrounded by in my childhood.) Our favorite joke which my 3 siblings found infinitely hilariously was a hit piece on our mother. We’d love to play act this little skit: there was our sweet Selma, tired of catering to her (cute but let’s face it, annoying) kids all day, and by dinner, if we were in any way bitching about the food, she’d get really pissed. This was how it would go: if we complained or didn’t want to eat something she’d growl at all of us at the dinner table about our lack of appreciation and selfishness (she was not wrong). Just as she was about to lose it, the blue wall phone would ring. With what seemed like elastic arms she’d stretch across the room and answer it in the sweetest, most angelic voice, like you’d just reached the receptionist in heaven. Even my Mom laughed a little when we took turns playing her.
Growing up in the Seventies, the only phones we had were rotary dial. Our family had two: One was mounted on the wall of our kitchen, and the second was upstairs in my parent's bedroom. That's where you would go if you wanted to have "private" conversations, although of course nothing could prevent someone from silently picking up the downstairs kitchen phone to secretly eavesdrop. Silently picking up the other line to listen in to a sister's or brother's conversation became an art form. During the pandemic, I did a lot of re-watching of "old" TV shows, and one of the shows I binged was "My So-Called Life," which actually still holds up. This is a show about teenage life that, to my amazement all these years later, contains NO CELL PHONES. It just proved to me, yet again, that we can survive without them. But whether or not we want to is a different question.
It's not phones but phone numbers that matter to me. When my Dad passed away in 2020, canceling his phone account made my heart hurt. The number was the same one our family had for more than 50 years - the one that went on every form I filled out, carried me through teenaged angst, and bailed me out of trouble. By the same token, I still have a land line with the number my late husband and I had before he died - it was the same number his 3 kids grew up with. I now use my cell number exclusively, but I just can't bear to part with that part of the past.
I've been in love with the telephone since I was a toddler. I'm 70 now and I'm still a black belt telephone person.
I miss the days when we all knew each other's phone numbers and everybody called everybody up and we had time to talk on the phone. Now everybody's on internet speed with the attention span of a gnat-- everybody's texting tapping typing - obsessed with their cellular devices (which aren't really telephones anyway) and nobody calls anybody anymore. My phone hardly ever rings and when it does it's a spam call.
I'm lonely to talk on the phone!
And even when I finally do get to talk to someone, they don't have the stamina to stay on the phone very long and they always say " OHHH we've been on for blah blah blah minutes.. " And I'm like, " YEAH, AND???"
Whereas, in the old days that was nothing. Sometimes we would stay on for hours!
I remember when I was a teenager I would come home from school and do my homework and then after supper I would be on the phone talking and laughing with my friends and my father would keep coming in and out of the room annoyed that I was on the phone and say things like, "You just saw her in school today...you're going to see her at school tomorrow .. what could you POSSIBLY have to talk about???!!?"
For my 16th birthday, my mother gave me a pink princess phone that lit up in the dark!!! I treasured it and I loved the feeling of talking secretly in the dark on my magic illuminated phone!
Kids today don't know what they're missing. Not that they know how to even carry on a conversation or speak in full sentences (and don't get me started on abbreviations.. ).🙄
I miss my landline!
Love this topic! My pinnacle phone was the pale pink Princess Trimline. So sleek. I felt cooler every time I picked it up! https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/61krvDBsImL._AC_SL1500_.jpg
I wanted a princess phone, lucky you! I grew up in the 1970s wilds of the Colorado mountains. We had a party line. That means we shared our phone line with eight other families. Trying to call a girlfriend sometimes for teenage girl was very trying. But it was fun to secretly listen in on other people’s phone conversations. Until you got caught. ELO rocks!
I had a cheap, white phone with, if I remember correctly, the key pad on the middle of the phone itself, as opposed to the base it sat on when not in use. I got it in middle school and spent hours on it nearly every night talking to one of my crushes. When that finally (thank god) fizzled, I used it to spend hours every night talking to my best friend, who went to a different school from ninth grade on. We used to talk about everything and make grand proclamations along the lines of, Oh! I had a REVELATION today. (bwahahahahaha) It's also worth noting that our house phone was also my dad's business line, since he ran his contracting business out of our house, and there was only ever the one line. No call waiting or anything. So periodically, my mom or dad or one of my brothers would get on the line while we were talking and interrupt: "Asha, other people in this house would like to use the telephone..." It makes me laugh now to think about it. The thought of hours at a time on a phone now is HORRIFYING to me, even with that friend who I'm still best friends with after 38 years.
YU8 7480! I don't know anyone's cell number but I still remember a phone number from 50 years ago.
Growing-up in 1960s/70s New York City, we had two rotary dial phones. A yellow one was mounted to the wall in the kitchen while the other (ugly, salmon colored) was in mom's room. We moved there in 1967 and when my grandmother left in 1993, the same phones were still there. I think the kitchen cord was different, but the phones remained the same. I was also the last generation of the lettered exchange. My number began AU3--the AU stood for AUdubon--made me feel like a character in a John O'Hara novel.
I remember the first phone I got for my room. It had a cord and was a push button and pinkish - more like mauve. It wasn’t shaped like a traditional phone but was flatter and very modern looking. But it wasn’t very comfortable to use, especially for long phone calls, so then I got this hideous shoulder rest thingy that stuck onto the phone with adhesive tape. I would spend hours on my phone after dinner with my best friend. I would lay on my bed or floor, and we’d do our homework together, as if we were hanging out in person. I was definitely labeled the phone hog in my house and would often say “Hey can I call you back? My brother [or whoever] needs to use the phone.” And then when we had “call waiting”, and you’d hear the beep, you’d say “Can you hold on a sec? I’ve got call waiting, thanks.” And you’d click over to the incoming call, take the message, and then get back to your very important conversation. It amazes me how we all managed without cell phones, without being able to contact someone at a moment’s notice. Perhaps it bred some healthy independence.
Growing up, I was not allowed to have a phone in my room--but my friend had a translucent blue plastic phone (a 1990s classic) that I absolutely coveted. I also used to have a standing phone date with a friend once a week after Friends aired--once we got a cordless phone, this was a revolution because prior to it, I the only place I could have this conversation was sitting on our kitchen floor, as the phone was attached to the wall.
I definitely prefer texting--it's so much easier to be in touch, much lower stakes to tell someone you're thinking of them or send them something you think they'd like. But picking up the phone to call someone really is love.
Here's another one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gdpHAB7kZTU&ab_channel=LabiSiffre-Topic
I miss old phones (and phone booths on the side of the road!)! You might like the Nerves' "Hanging on the Telephone"! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=emy5mA8Ixtc
Phones through the ages. Love it. Made me miss the old days. Life was so simple. Getting a busy signal meant I had to wait and try later which probably taught me to slow down, be patient. It was cause for celebration when my parents got the push button phone in a copper brown color. BTW, try Pokerface. It’s a modern day version of Columbo.
I live in a sparsely settled part of northern Vermont, where we STILL have n o cell service! My first cell phone was an old flip model. I took it with me when I was scheduled to do a reading at the U. of Michigan. About five minutes in, someone's bleepin cell phone began to ring. I glared daggers into the audience, but it kept on ringing And ringing. I should detour to say that I have been quite deaf for most of my adult life, so that even with hearing aids (if you have put off getting them, DON'T! Your life will change for the better), sound is rather ventriloquial for me.
You know the dénouement here. The phone ewas my own. I had never heard it ring before! Live and learn.
I remember my nana still had a rotary dial, when things started to go to touch-tones--a sea change. Because my family now lives in an old house with a vintage-y kitchen, my husband installed an 80s era wall-mounted phone with a long cord. I've even let my kids make prank calls on that phone--just once, because, of course, caller ID! It's like going back in time in my very own kitchen. (And then my amazing air fryer is like going to the future.) As for songs about phones and phone numbers, my writer friend David Giffels wrote an essay that explores the ideas of music, fame, and being from an Ohio town where you feel like nothing of the sort ever happens. Their phone exchange was 867, and so of course he and his fellow teenaged friends would prank call: 867-5309. Only recently did I realize my area in Maryland also has an 867 exchange. You know I'm going to have to make a prank call one of these days!
Ours was a black rotary dial on an 8-party line and a 3-digit phone number 208 in the late 40s. The real innovation was getting our first cell phone in a big bag in rural SE CO.