Phones

When I was about four they taught me my phone number; it was 6-6130. The phone was heavy, black, sort of a square shape, with a very heavy receiver. It belonged to Southern Bell (aka The Phone Company). My mother taught me how to dial the numbers and it took a lot of effort to get my small fingers to move the dial. It made a clicking sound when you let go of it. In time, if I listened carefully as my mother dialed the phone I could tell who she was calling by the number of clicks.

I don’t recall that my grandparents, who lived with us, used the phone very much. My mother mostly managed the telephone. It lived on a small stand in the hallway between the bedrooms. I still have the stand; it sits in my entrance hall today with the silk flowers in a vase and a pair of porcelain doves I got as a wedding present.

When my mother used the phone, I didn’t like it because she would talk and talk. I was supposed to stay there with her while she was on the phone and read books. There was book shelf right next to the phone and if she got on a really long call I would pull all the books off the shelf and amuse myself by rearranging them (sometimes failing to put them back).

My father seldom initiated phone calls. When he did answer the phone (usually after it was passed to him by my mother), he responded with something that sounded like “Harry.” I wondered why he only spoke on the phone to my Uncle Harry, until I learned that he was actually saying “alright.” I guess he meant – OK, so you have me on the phone, ALRIGHT, tell me why you called.

When I was in elementary school, they changed our phone number to State-5-6130. That meant, we had to dial St5-6130. Everyone complained about it a lot--- just one more thing to remember. You could tell by your exchange where you lived. My father had a Fairfax for his work number. Our friends who lived “over the mountain” all had numbers that started with Tremont.

We did eventually move “over the mountain” ourselves, back in 1958. In the language of Birmingham, “over the mountain” means on Shades Mountain and points south, rather than within the confines of Jones Valley, as defined by Red Mountain. The move back then to “over the mountain” meant you had arrived.

So with our move, we got our Tremont exchange, and our number was Tremont 9-2215. After a couple of years, however, they ran out of Tremont numbers and gave us a new number – Valley-2-3003. My mother was not too happy about this; I think she always liked the old Tremont number better, but life goes on. Eventually, the phone company dropped the use of letters and our number became 822-3003.

Along with our move “over the mountain” came a new kind of telephone. In fact, we actually had FOUR telephones in our new house and each one was a different color. We had a beige phone in the family room and yellow wall phone in the kitchen. Down in the basement we had black wall mounted phone in the laundry room. My parents had pale blue phone between their twin beds. All of the phones were rotary, very heavy, and belonged to the phone company.

List most teenagers in my acquaintance, I mostly used the laundry room phone. There was more privacy that way. The laundry room was just off what we called the “rumpus room.” Today this room might be referred to as a “club room.” The idea was that the homeowner would finish off part of the basement to be extra space to be used for casual entertaining (aka place for teenage kids to hang out without damaging the good furniture).

It wasn’t long, however, before I wanted my own phone. My Daddy ran a wire into my bedroom and hooked up an old phone he had in his collection of used “stuff.” This one was VERY old and sort of round shaped. The dial made a loud noise and the receiver was quite heavy. While it was, of course, originally black, my mother painted it gold. It somehow went with the gold trim on the furniture that she had painted white. In those days it was fashionable for teenage girls to have French Provencial furniture. Rather than splurge for all new furniture, my mother simply painted their old mahogany furniture.

My father also decided he wanted a phone in his basement workshop, so he installed one. It was a conventional looking phone in basic black, but it had a red hand set. He liked red a lot, so why not.

I don’t think the phone company ever knew about those two phones (mine and his), but eventually it became a moot point when it became OK to add your own phones.

We never did have “Princess” or “Slim-Line” phones – not in our family. Some of my friends had them, but “we” didn’t like them because they were too light and silly looking. A phone, should, after all, look like a phone and not be so light that if you pulled the receiver cord too hard you pulled the phone onto the floor. But, we were sort of unusual in our taste for big clunky phones.

Sometime when I was still a teenager, we started having area codes. Now our phone number of 205-822-3003, but we didn’t have to use the 205 except when dialing from out of state. Just one more number to remember!

When I was in college, we didn’t have phones in our dorm rooms. Instead there were a couple of phones on each floor and another in the sorority chapter room. For that reason, we didn’t talk on the phone very much. When you got a phone call in the dorm, someone to answer the phone and come get you.

When Steve and I got married, we opted for one phone in the kitchen and another in the bedroom. We kept up with this arrangement up until we built our new house in 1992. From our apartment in Illinois, to our house in California, to our house in Maryland, we had a yellow wall phone in the kitchen and white phone in the bedroom. But when we moved to Maryland in 1976, we upgraded to touch-tone.

When we moved to Severna Park, we were given a 544 number. Soon I learned that the 544 number would forever brand us as newcomers. Real oldtime Severna Park people have 647 numbers. But, in time, 544 became more socially acceptable. Other new numbers that nobody ever heard of were assigned to the latest influx of newcomers.

Knowing the value of the 647 exchange, when I set up the phone service for Chesapeake Academy, I asked for a 647 number; ditto for Bay Media, Next Wave Group, and FacetsWoman. Our fax number is a 544, but some things in life you have to just live with.

We got our first answering machine sometime in the 80s I guess. At first I swore I would never have one, but in time I gave in. Now, of course, everybody has them and they have become a way of life.

But in 1992, when we built our own house, we included a phone system. We have phones all over the house – the kitchen and master bedroom, of course, plus all the other bedrooms, the laundry room, and both of our offices. We even have phone jacks on both of our decks. Although we moved from Severna Park to Arnold, we stayed in the same phone exchange and and did not have to give up our old 544 number, which we have had since 1976.

In 1996, when I set up my office, we bought a multi-line phone system. We have about 15 instruments spread throughout the offices. It is an OK system, though it seems to be vulnerable to losing its programming during power outages.

I got my first cellular phone at a Chamber of Commerce raffle in the early 90s. It was a “bag phone” about the size of shoe box. It plugged into the car’s cigarette lighter. I thought I was “hot stuff.” The phone was “free,” but the service wasn’t. I found myself with a monthly bill to Cellular One. Sure, it was the poor woman’s cell phone because it wasn’t actually wired into the car, but it was a big help and gave me great comfort. I was glad I had it the day my car’s timing chain went out at the entrance to the 14th Street Bridge in DC.

The bag phone eventually gave way to the “flip-phone.” It was large and gray and clunky, but so much better than the bag phone. I could actually fit into a large purse.

But eventually it died, and I got a Nokia stick phone. I never liked it as much and I was glad when I could upgrade to a Star Tac flip style phone. Sadly I lost that one out of my purse when I fell in the snow. I ended up with a Motorola stick phone – the cheapest thing I could get at the time because I was so angry with myself for losing the cute little Star Tac. In time, however, the batteries started fail, so I started looking for a new option about a a year and half-ago.

My current phone is a Palm Treo 650. I love it! Of course, it was so much more than a phone and that makes it all the better.

I see yet another phone revolution in my future. Our son is doing VOIP (Voice Over Internet Protocol) consulting and is going to help me set up a VOIP system for my business. I imagine in time we will have a similar system for our home. But one step at a time!