Ode to the Old-Fashioned Telephone

Remember when the phone would ring and your heart would start to race? Because it could be anyone: that guy I was thinking might call. A new client. Or… a telemarketer with a deal on a timeshare. The range of possibilities (from great and good all the way to just plain annoying) were endless.

It sounds positively archaic, but even five years ago I didn’t know who was calling my office phone until I picked up and the voice identified itself on the other end. (No wonder I started letting all those calls go to voice mail.)

Those last few moments of “who could it be” mystery had a delicious sense of possibility that has now been replaced by the metallic taste of certainty. First it was caller ID, and now it’s distinctive ring tones; these days we know without even looking who it will be.

Go back even farther, to childhood, and the mystery was even larger; the entire household shared one number. Who would the unknown caller be looking for? Mom, Dad, my sister or brother? Of course we quickly developed a sixth sense, based mostly on the time of day. Dinner time calls were either telemarketers or my grandmother. After dinner calls were almost always for one of us kids. After school calls were probably the gossipy neighbor. As the youngest and least-phoned, I usually tried to answer first. We took messages for others, and often knew more about each other’s lives than what were told.

Long distance calls? Those of course were a Really Big Deal. And tying up the phone line for too long was also frowned upon; what if there were an emergency, or just another friend or family member trying to get a word in edgewise? We all learned moderation in both distance and time, valuable lessons that now seem almost as old-fashioned as the rotary dial.

I don’t want to go back to the good old days. Like everyone else, I’ve gotten used to having a private number and messages that I keep track of myself. I like having a pocketful of maps, weather radar, and music. And I really appreciate being able to run my “office” from a regatta or distant harbor.

But I do sometimes miss that heart-racing ring of the unknown phone, that chance to run through the list of possible and impossible callers, that last second of delicious anticipation… just before I pick up to hear, “Is your mother there?”