Call Back

 I am fortunate to remember when talking on the phone cost money. Long distance, they told us, was the next best thing to being there. This was likely from the same brain trust that wanted us to believe that TV dinners were the next best thing to your good cooking. This was a time when phones were attached to the walls. The distance you could move away from the telephone was dependent solely on the length of the cord that attached the handset to the beast of a machine that was nailed to one central location in your home. Talking on the phone for more than a few minutes required a dexterity exhibited primarily by your mom who could do just about anything required of her while cradling the handset neatly between her chin and shoulder, carrying on complex conversations while keeping everyone safe, clothed, and fed. 

I grew up in a home with a phone in the kitchen. An extension in my parent's bedroom. Another in the basement. To keep my calls private, I would try to take them in the basement, where I could drape myself over the easy chair and chat away. Unless my older brother, whose primary residence was also in the basement, was nearby. Then I surrendered to the phone in the kitchen, where I could step outside into the chilly garage and close the door, free to talk and talk until someone followed that spiraling cord through that crack in the door: What are you doing out here? If my parents were out for the evening, and both of my brothers were otherwise occupied, I could take advantage of the line in mom and dad's room, where I could watch their TV while I conspired with my friends. 

But mostly, I didn't talk on the phone. That was what grownups did. Sure, I heard about kids whose parents spent all that extra money to put a phone in their rooms. Mostly they were rich. Or on TV. And when it came to talking to anyone outside the city limits, well it just wasn't done. Not unless it was a special occasion like Christmas or maybe announcing the birth of a new relative. Or the passing of another. 

In spite of Madison Avenue's insistence, long distance was not for idle chit-chat. Unless you were willing to stay up very late at night, when the rates were cheaper and the person on the other end of the line was okay with catching up in the dead of night. Or, if you were one of those cheapskates who called collect, you had to hope that whoever was on the other end of the line was as interested as you were about staying in touch. 

I say all of this in a wave of appreciation for the way things work now. Phones are everywhere. No cords. No need to press the machine to your head. And if, for example, your wife happens to be across the ocean on some tropical isle and I need to check in with her about where that extra bag of potato chips got put away, I can do it. Much to our collective chagrin.