The Transformational Tale of the Telephone

In 2007, Apple introduced its very first iPhone …which means that by now an entire generation of youngsters have grown up knowing nothing else but a smartphone when communicating with a telephone.

Does anyone still have a landline? (I do. There are still a few people who prefer reaching us at this number.) And I have many wonderful memories of the telephone, while it experienced many technological transformations through the seven decades of my life.

Growing up there was only the old-fashioned rotary phone, and AT&T was the only game in town. There were some advantages to having the phone company as a monopoly – you knew exactly who to call if you needed a new phone, a service repair, or anything else phone-related.

I still remember my family’s old phone number in West Hempstead and in Teaneck … in fact, I still remember some of my closest friends’ phone numbers, too. Today, of course, there is no need for anyone to remember a phone number, as the smartphone does that for you – and it even dials for you, too!

The real old-timers – the folks a generation older than me – will refer to their phone number using the two-letter exchange that every phone number used to begin with.   Old New York telephone exchanges, like “BUtterfield” and “MUrray Hill“, used letters instead of numbers to identify the area, a system that was phased out in the 1960s in favor of all-number exchanges. My 94-year-old mother still uses ESplanade for the first two numbers of her old Flatbush telephone number when asked to identify it.

Back when I was a kid, there were even some rural areas that had party lines, a system where multiple subscribers shared the same phone line, requiring distinct ring patterns to identify calls for each household. Party lines connected multiple homes to a single telephone line, which was less expensive for telephone companies to install than individual lines for each household.

Area codes have changed dramatically since I was a child, too. Back then there was one area code for each geographical area, and area codes always had a zero or a one as the middle number. 203 … 212 …201… 914.  Now, with the introduction of cellphones, there are multiple area codes for each geographical area – and many of them simply don’t sound like area codes to me. 646 and 732 should be the first three digits of a telephone number, not an area code. Go figure!

It used to be that for local calls, you wouldn’t have to dial an area code. Then the phone companies required you to dial an area code even for local phone numbers and forced you to dial a 1 before making any call. Now you often don’t need to dial the 1, but you still need to dial an area code for local calls. It’s all very confusing … I still sometimes dial the 1 out of habit and wonder why I need an area code for a local call. Fortunately, most of the calls I make now are contacts in my smart phone or click-to-call phone numbers – so I don’t need to do much dialing anymore.

Of course, back then if you were away from your home, there was no way to communicate via telephone – unless you happened to find a pay phone nearby. It’s crazy to think that only 25 years ago, if there was an emergency, there would often be no way to immediately make a phone call. Somehow, we all survived … perhaps our expectations were not as great. After all, nobody ever dreamed that there would be a day that virtually everyone over the age of 12 would be always carrying their own smartphone with them. I believe the very last pay phone that existed in New York City was just eliminated.

Does anyone call 411 these days? I don’t even think the service exists.

Another thing that has disappeared – the printed phone book. I remember the excitement of getting a brand-new phone book delivered to our door each year. I would always look up our name to see if they got the address and phone number correct – and check if there were any other Feldsteins who lived in the area. The Yellow Pages – now also a relic of the past – was a very handy tool which our family used often when we needed any kind of servicing for our home. And pretty much everyone kept an alphabetical address book, with contact information for their most frequently called people, in their kitchen. Gone by the wayside.

Since everyone in the family had to share one phone, calls were much shorter, especially if you were making long distance calls, for which AT&T charged a hefty premium. I remember when I was in sixth grade, I built up enough courage to make my first phone call to a girl I had a crush on. Her dad answered the call, and he gave the phone to his daughter. No doubt he was listening to at least her part of the conversation!

Later in my life, I had a girlfriend who lived in Maryland – and my limited funds at the time forced me to write long, lovely letters to her instead of calling her and getting hit with expensive long-distance charges. Looking back at this now, I don’t regret it. I received wonderful letters from her in return, too.

I remember when our family purchased our first push-button phone, which quickly made the rotary phone obsolete. I had a friend who was able to tell you what number you were dialing simply by identifying the different ring tones for each number!

One of the big technological breakthroughs for the telephone was the introduction of the cordless phone, which allowed you to avoid having to be tethered close to the phone receiver. You could carry the phone with you into any room of your house.  One problem – when you wanted to make an outgoing call, you would often forget where you placed the telephone!

The other big breakthrough I remember was caller ID. On the one hand, it’s nice to know who is calling you before you pick up the phone; on the other hand, there was something special about wondering who was calling you and the element of surprise before picking up the phone and finding out who it was on the other line.  Remember those old movies where the cops needed you to be on the telephone line for a lengthy amount of time so they could trace the call? Too bad they didn’t have caller ID back then!

And finally, the cellular phone – and all the bells and whistles that have been added since its introduction a generation ago. It took me awhile to appreciate its importance – when I purchased my first cellphone, I simply kept it in my car for use in an emergency. Now, just like everyone else, I take it with me everywhere I go.

I love my iPhone, and pretty much accomplish everything I need from it, including online shopping, banking, and the like. But I do miss the days when the telephone was more appreciated for its technological importance – the fact that today you can call your son or daughter 6,000 miles away in Israel in a matter of seconds, with or without video, or call an Uber and have a car at your location in a couple of minutes, is still amazing to me, and something we often take too much for granted.

So, I hope everyone is using this incredible device to best advantage. But remember that communicating by phone a generation or two ago wasn’t nearly as easy and nowhere near as powerful as it is now. For that we should all be grateful.