We had a phone with no dial, and when you picked up the phone, someone called "the Operator", would answer "number pleeze" in a voice that sounded like she was holding her nose. My mom would reply something like "Atwater 5-2698", and get connectedto what was usually one of my aunts. We were also on a "party line", which meant it was shared with someone we did not know, and if you picked up the phone, some strange voice could be using the line. It was considered rude to listen to the conversation, so of course we did.
My best friend (still) had a party line. She lived just across the alley (know what that is?) from me, and on many occasions, her mom would ask if I wanted to stay for dinner. Of course, instead of running across the alley to ask my mom, I'd pick up the phone. Nine times out of ten, the party line was engaged. I had to beg a crabby old lady to hang up so I could call my mom. It usually ended up with me running across the alley to ask... Honestly, fond memories!
We fade in on a domestic scene. Dad is reading a newspaper. Mom is knitting (or doing something motherly). Junior is rearranging baseball cards and talking to himself. Sis is staring off into space.
Phone: Rings
Phone: Keeps ringing
Dad: Will someone get that!
Mom: Sis, it's probably that boy again. He's been calling four times a day. Please answer it.
Sis: He's a jerk and besides I saw him talking to Barbara.
Junior: Good ballplayer though. Bats left. Throws right.
Phone: Ringing
Dad throws down the newspaper in disgust and goes to the phone
Don't forget younger sister picking up the phone in the other room, and suddenly you start hearing snickers as you try to talk. And I walked to school in the snow uphill both ways 🤣
First Congregational? Well there are a bunch…. I went to Pratt school next to Tower Hill. My mom did drive us when it was really brutal, even with chains on the tires it was a struggle!
I lived in the Twin Cities for 12 years and remember standing on three-foot iced-over snowdrifts waiting for a flight bus. Sometimes I could grab the top of (today’s topic!) a phone booth to balance myself.
I hope you don’t mind my saying so, but I think the story also works as an illustration of why Boomers as a generation weren’t able to better develop empathy and interpersonal language for emotional connection. It’s not just that all your fathers were drafted into the military, it’s also that you literally didn’t have an outlet for verbalizing and exchanging thoughts about the world.
In order to share his inner thoughts and values to the broader world, a Boomer had to become funny enough to get a newspaper column!
I keep saying (to myself) “this is his best column yet…” then he does a better one the next day. Sigh. So much talent; so little time. And he knows how to spell!
As a Boomer (a month younger than Dave), my reaction to this "seminar” was Do WHAT!!!!? , followed by laughter. We learned telephone manners in the third grade. I had to wait two years to use them, because I couldn’t lift the receiver on our reinforced steel table phone. You had to be careful bringing to your ear, because of the possibility of braining yourself.
As a proud gen Zer, I'll just snidely point out that your tech magnum opus, Dave Barry in Cyberspace (wherever the hell that is), has on the back of the book this quote - and as our bloghost would say, we are NOT making this up:
"LOL "Laughing Out Loud": This indicates that the writer is laughing out loud. It is generally used in response to a statement that has a <g> after it."
I may not know how to use a telephone, but I am sure that my generation has at least never written anything with a <g> after it, thinking it was cool and techy.
Anyway, I am sure glad that judi managed to help you figure out how to use the Substack and add comments! <g>
Hey, I like gen Zers! It’s fun to swap stories about communication contraption traumas. A lot of it is about all the ways we manage to look like idiots in front of other humans. Technology changes, but embarrassment is forever. 😎
My Gen-z daughter has no problem calling me at 11 at night asking me to send her money through Apple Cash so that she can get out of a parking garage that doesn’t have an attendant.
From the female perspective: when the boy with whom I was madly in love phoned (14 and I was planning the wedding) I told my mother to tell him that I had laryngitis, or was in the hospital, or any reason to not go to the phone. He never called again.
"We make paper printouts — Just in case! — of every single thing on our computers including spam emails from 1997."
My dad, who was not only not a boomer, but who was just a year too young to get drafted for World War Two, did that. Boxes of printouts that went straight to the recycler after he died.
Same! My dad would print out interesting articles and emails from the internet and mail them through the postal service to me. He died 12 years ago and the reams of paper that he'd saved which had to be discarded was immense.
Oh my! Dear Uncle Ralph spent many, many coins in the library Xeroxing (haha) articles which he would cut down and send, en masse, to me via postal service. It’s kinda hard to throw them away, but after he died, when they excavated his basement, hoo boy what a mess in his house.
If you watch the Netflix comedy “Manon the Inside” you will see Ted Danson’s (quite lovable) character clipping and sending interesting (to him) articles to his grown daughter.
There’s another topic! The draft. Last year a friend of mine, only 10 years younger than I, did not know what was meant by “the lottery!” And then was shocked that young men were required to join the military and fight in a war!
Thing is Dave, being both anxious and lonely, according to the folks who study the Gen Z "Zoomers" (Q:"Would you say you're both anxious and lonely, or just anxious or lonely" A:"Yes") would explain why answering a phone willingly could cause the research numbers to shift to the positive side. And, if nothing else, the "Zoomers" would prefer not to validate nosy Boomers or Millennials if they can help it. Although, strangely, the Zs are very much into retro fashion and behind the resurgence of those PVC discs called LPs. Nostalgia is big, but since they haven't been around long enough to have their own (or at least good memories), they borrow it. Then there is the fear that the person or machine at the other end might be speaking in a native language, causing even more anxiety. That would be "cringe," "sus" "cap" "wack" or "boujee," and anyway, hard to exude "rizz" over the phone.
There was also no way to find out who called if they hung up or a incompetent family member took the message.
Scene:
I get home from work on a random day in 1984.
Dad: Some guy called for you.
Me: (Hopeful. It could have been Mel Gibson or Simon LeBon.) What was his name?
Dad: He didn't say.
Dad hands me a piece of paper.
Me: There are only 6 numbers here.
Dad: That's all he gave.
Me: @&$%#
Clearly, I dodged a bullet if it was Mel Gibson.
The advent of *69 was quite the big deal, when the touchstone (omg autocorrect doesn’t know what TouchTone is!) era was in full swing!
And then, in 1974, Jim Rockford made everyone realize they needed an answering machine.
Omg, great memory!
Very funny!
We had a phone with no dial, and when you picked up the phone, someone called "the Operator", would answer "number pleeze" in a voice that sounded like she was holding her nose. My mom would reply something like "Atwater 5-2698", and get connectedto what was usually one of my aunts. We were also on a "party line", which meant it was shared with someone we did not know, and if you picked up the phone, some strange voice could be using the line. It was considered rude to listen to the conversation, so of course we did.
My best friend (still) had a party line. She lived just across the alley (know what that is?) from me, and on many occasions, her mom would ask if I wanted to stay for dinner. Of course, instead of running across the alley to ask my mom, I'd pick up the phone. Nine times out of ten, the party line was engaged. I had to beg a crabby old lady to hang up so I could call my mom. It usually ended up with me running across the alley to ask... Honestly, fond memories!
Atwater? Are you a cheesehead?
Why was it always “Atwater?”
Hahaha! Now do one about driving before GPS.
Reading paper maps! Yes!
I still love the hard copy maps, but yeah, knowing where the accidents and traffic problems are really sold me on digital.
I live in Rhode Island. My GPS pronounces it "Rhoda's Land."
I don’t have GPS either. No smartphone. No GPS. I might as well be dead.
We fade in on a domestic scene. Dad is reading a newspaper. Mom is knitting (or doing something motherly). Junior is rearranging baseball cards and talking to himself. Sis is staring off into space.
Phone: Rings
Phone: Keeps ringing
Dad: Will someone get that!
Mom: Sis, it's probably that boy again. He's been calling four times a day. Please answer it.
Sis: He's a jerk and besides I saw him talking to Barbara.
Junior: Good ballplayer though. Bats left. Throws right.
Phone: Ringing
Dad throws down the newspaper in disgust and goes to the phone
Phone: Stops ringing
Don't forget younger sister picking up the phone in the other room, and suddenly you start hearing snickers as you try to talk. And I walked to school in the snow uphill both ways 🤣
I actually did. In SE Minneapolis. It was a very small but steep hill with a water tower on top, and our school was on the other side of it.
Me, too! But in NE Mpls.! (We went to church in SE Mpls. near Dinkytown.)
First Congregational? Well there are a bunch…. I went to Pratt school next to Tower Hill. My mom did drive us when it was really brutal, even with chains on the tires it was a struggle!
The University Lutheran Church of Hope - across the street from Marshall H.S.
On the other side of the hill.
I lived in the Twin Cities for 12 years and remember standing on three-foot iced-over snowdrifts waiting for a flight bus. Sometimes I could grab the top of (today’s topic!) a phone booth to balance myself.
"Get off my lawn!"
Good stuff, Barry.
I hope you don’t mind my saying so, but I think the story also works as an illustration of why Boomers as a generation weren’t able to better develop empathy and interpersonal language for emotional connection. It’s not just that all your fathers were drafted into the military, it’s also that you literally didn’t have an outlet for verbalizing and exchanging thoughts about the world.
In order to share his inner thoughts and values to the broader world, a Boomer had to become funny enough to get a newspaper column!
Which left a LOT of us bitter and resentful toward successful comedic newspaper column writers. Present company excepted, of course.
I keep saying (to myself) “this is his best column yet…” then he does a better one the next day. Sigh. So much talent; so little time. And he knows how to spell!
As a Boomer (a month younger than Dave), my reaction to this "seminar” was Do WHAT!!!!? , followed by laughter. We learned telephone manners in the third grade. I had to wait two years to use them, because I couldn’t lift the receiver on our reinforced steel table phone. You had to be careful bringing to your ear, because of the possibility of braining yourself.
I forgot about skull injuries caused by receivers bonking me! Even worse: the person who called hearing the bonk sound and my involuntary “owww!”
As a proud gen Zer, I'll just snidely point out that your tech magnum opus, Dave Barry in Cyberspace (wherever the hell that is), has on the back of the book this quote - and as our bloghost would say, we are NOT making this up:
"LOL "Laughing Out Loud": This indicates that the writer is laughing out loud. It is generally used in response to a statement that has a <g> after it."
I may not know how to use a telephone, but I am sure that my generation has at least never written anything with a <g> after it, thinking it was cool and techy.
Anyway, I am sure glad that judi managed to help you figure out how to use the Substack and add comments! <g>
But why can’t I ♥️ Like anyone’s clever comments?
Try using the app. Or not using the app
Or unplug Substack and plug it back in.
I actually in fact, right now, am Liking ❤️ via the app, thanks. On my ipad, because my phone is too old to install OS6 dammit.
Hey, I like gen Zers! It’s fun to swap stories about communication contraption traumas. A lot of it is about all the ways we manage to look like idiots in front of other humans. Technology changes, but embarrassment is forever. 😎
Now try explaining research, without Google, to them.
The dreaded card catalog!
Oh that hard stuff! Actually going to the library!
My Gen-z daughter has no problem calling me at 11 at night asking me to send her money through Apple Cash so that she can get out of a parking garage that doesn’t have an attendant.
From the female perspective: when the boy with whom I was madly in love phoned (14 and I was planning the wedding) I told my mother to tell him that I had laryngitis, or was in the hospital, or any reason to not go to the phone. He never called again.
"With whom I was madly in love" Yes, another Boomer who remembers what we were actually taught in English!
Thank you!
What if you’re Scottish, offended, a Boomer, and you are terrified of phone calls. (It’s called Asperger’s.)
Haha, I have to struggle to vote for anything that isn’t “I’m Scottish …”
Larkin would be Irish?
Irish mostly, yes the name is Irish, but we have Scots in the closet. 😸
Well let them out!
D’ye ken the danger o’ that, Missy?
"We make paper printouts — Just in case! — of every single thing on our computers including spam emails from 1997."
My dad, who was not only not a boomer, but who was just a year too young to get drafted for World War Two, did that. Boxes of printouts that went straight to the recycler after he died.
Same! My dad would print out interesting articles and emails from the internet and mail them through the postal service to me. He died 12 years ago and the reams of paper that he'd saved which had to be discarded was immense.
Oh my! Dear Uncle Ralph spent many, many coins in the library Xeroxing (haha) articles which he would cut down and send, en masse, to me via postal service. It’s kinda hard to throw them away, but after he died, when they excavated his basement, hoo boy what a mess in his house.
If you watch the Netflix comedy “Manon the Inside” you will see Ted Danson’s (quite lovable) character clipping and sending interesting (to him) articles to his grown daughter.
I HATE autocorrect! It’s “Man On the Inside.” Autocorrect is a moron!
There’s another topic! The draft. Last year a friend of mine, only 10 years younger than I, did not know what was meant by “the lottery!” And then was shocked that young men were required to join the military and fight in a war!
That says a lot about history classes.
1st of all they have to realize they can use the phone for actually talking instead of just playing with it.
Thing is Dave, being both anxious and lonely, according to the folks who study the Gen Z "Zoomers" (Q:"Would you say you're both anxious and lonely, or just anxious or lonely" A:"Yes") would explain why answering a phone willingly could cause the research numbers to shift to the positive side. And, if nothing else, the "Zoomers" would prefer not to validate nosy Boomers or Millennials if they can help it. Although, strangely, the Zs are very much into retro fashion and behind the resurgence of those PVC discs called LPs. Nostalgia is big, but since they haven't been around long enough to have their own (or at least good memories), they borrow it. Then there is the fear that the person or machine at the other end might be speaking in a native language, causing even more anxiety. That would be "cringe," "sus" "cap" "wack" or "boujee," and anyway, hard to exude "rizz" over the phone.
"One ringy dingly, two ringy dingies..."
--- Lily Tomlin as "Ernestine" the telephone operator
I read that in her voice.