by Donna Swagerty Shreve
My first recollection of a phone happened at my beloved grandma’s farm. I was little enough where I had to stand on a step stool to reach the phone that attached to the wall in the kitchen. Grandma and Grandpa were part of a party line and their ring was two short rings. If it rang any other combination, we were to let it ring. An operator answered if one wanted to place a call. You gave the number or name of the person you wanted and the operator would connect you.
Grandpa and Grandma had a phone because a few years earlier a neighbor had to drive over to their farm to tell them about a family emergency. Their third son had been in a terrible car accident. All of a sudden Grandpa saw the importance of a phone in the home. They were never people who gave in to much luxury.
My family lived in town in Escalon and my fathers’ job was the principal of the only in-town elementary school. My parents thought it was important to pay a bit more on their phone bill and have a private line. There could be too big of a temptation to listen in by others in town if our family had a party line. I knew as a young child of ages 4 through 7 that my family had a better phone than my grandparents.
Our family moved to the big town of Stockton in 1954 and again we had a private line. Our phone was located on the wall in the kitchen and there were no extensions as our home was not that large and any extra phone cost extra money. The phone was not to be answered by any of us kids as it was not considered polite during that era to have anyone but an adult answer the phone according to my mother. Talking on the phone in my home was never a private conversation until the family moved into town near University of the Pacific.
Now the family phone was placed on the ground level of a three split level home. We called the small inner room the library as it contained a large desk and several bookcases. Answering the lone phone was far from private. I was now in college at U.O.P. and my brothers and sister were in high school. We wanted privacy. My good friend had a brother who specialized in phones. He had privately wired two blocks around his family home and the neighbors had their own private line. This continued until the phone company found out about it and demanded the high school kid dismantle it. This phone genius also lurked around the dump when the phone company got rid of old phones. He would salvage what he could and make new phones that no one had to pay for.
He brought one of these put together phones when our parents were not at home. He set it up so it would not ring.; thus the phone company was not aware of its existence nor were our parents. It was hidden in my sister’s room under her bed. The greatest use was dialing out and making phone calls to our friends and no one was the wiser.
My sister Jane had not cleaned her room in a while and our mother was so frustrated she went in to her room to clean it herself. When Mom went to vacuum under Jane’s bed, she kept hitting something. She stooped down to investigate and found the phone. The four of us kids were horrified and then amazed when she let us keep the phone as it was not costing any extra. At that time, any extra extensions were charged extra on the bill.
I was engaged during this time to my now husband. He was in El Paso for a semester before he returned to Stockton. I put caution to the wind and had an $80 phone one month in the year 1966. Every minute counted and we were silly enough not to pay attention. We certainly did keep track of our minutes after I had to pay off that bill.
After we were married and lived in Connecticut for four years, I made vow to call my parents every Sunday for a quick chat. I limited myself to 5 minutes because every minute added up to a bigger bill. I also waited until after 7:00 in the evening of Sundays because that was the time the rates went down. We lived in a town house apartment at the time and splurged and had a phone up and down stairs. We were moving up in the world.
After the boys were born we were back in Stockton. Our oldest would take the family room phone attached to a wall with its extra long cord and go outside to the patio so he could have private conversations. Later one of his girl friends bought him a phone so he could have one in his bedroom. At that time just the phone was charged but not the extra line.
By the time cell phones came along both of our sons had left the home. Somehow I didn’t feel, at first, that I really needed a cell phone without the boys at home or out and about. When the boys both got cell phones, I had to learn to send text messages as they didn’t always answer their phone calls but would return text messages.
A few years ago I needed an international phone as I was visiting Australia. I took the plunge and bought an iPhone. I have slowly slipped into the various lures of the device and feel now it is a necessity. We are now debating whether to get rid of our landline.
978 words
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2/7/2017
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