Thursday Thirteen #459

Hello? Sometimes when I watch old movies or TV shows from decades gone by, I find myself distracted by and nostalgic for the technology we've left behind. Particularly phones.

First of all, I long for telephone conversations. You know, where you can listen to someone's voice instead of punching out abbreviated words with your thumbs. Second, I like the phone being rooted in my home or workplace, and away from me when I'm at a restaurant or walking up the street or in a car or bus. When I'm home or at work, I like to be connected. When I'm away, I enjoy being disconnected. Now it's almost the opposite. People text me when I'm home and my cell is in my purse or charging on the kitchen counter. Yet when I'm in public and I have my phone in hand, I see it right away. That's not how I prefer to communicate! I'm out of sync with my times.

And so I'm wandering down memory lane and posting a Valentine to all the phones I've loved before. 

 #1 The first phone I remember in my parents' kitchen. The first call I remember receiving was on a phone like this. It was from May, the cleaning lady who came by once a week. She called me on Sunday afternoon – she asked for ME – to tell me The Beatles were going to be on Ed Sullivan that night. I was 6. I was no only thrilled about seeing The Lads, I felt very grown up that I had gotten a call.

#2 A few years later we upgraded to this phone with buttons. It was either the late 1960s or very early 1970s. The one in the kitchen was yellow. It was at this point we became a three extension family ...

 

#3 Phones almost identical to this one also appeared in my parents' bedroom and the basement. It was easier on my mom because we had a 4BR ranch with the laundry in the basement, so she was able to answer the phone pretty much wherever she was during the day.

#4 In 1975, when I began working in an office immediately after high school, the phone on my desk was like this one, except mine was black and had only 5 lines. 

 #5 Rows of payphones like this were in train stations and hotel lobbies around the Loop. I used them often. It's from one of these phones that I generally let someone know that I was running late.

#6 Pay phones like this were all over, too. I seldom used them because they always seemed filthy. (So much old gum! Ick!) At least cleaning the ones in hotels and the train stations was someone's job. I don't know who, if anyone, was responsible for the upkeep of these phones.

 #7 The phone in my first apartment, ca 1978. My place was so tiny I didn't need an extension. It had a really long cord so I could carry it around with me. 

 #8 My 1980s boyfriend had one of the first cordless phones. He got it at Radio Shack and was wildly proud of it. He never liked talking on the phone until he got one like this.

 

 

 #9 In 2001, when I moved into this condo, I had two of these phones – one just inside the front door and one in the master bedroom.

 

 #10 These phones were, for a time, on the back of airline seats. I never used one, but I received many a call from one, always from bosses who were in love with idea of calling from mid-air.

 

 

 #11 My first flip phone. I found snapping it shut very satisfying, especially if I was displeased with whomever I was speaking to.

 

#12 My current landline phones. Still the best way to reach me at home. They are placed where the original ones were when I first moved in – by the front door and next to my bed. If it's not broke, don't fix it.

 

 #13 My current phone is not really a phone. It's mostly a camera and a vehicle for sending/receiving texts and summoning rideshares.

Do any of these phones look familiar to you? 

 

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