Once upon a time, long, long ago...

Subject: Once upon a time, long, long ago...

Once upon a time, long, long ago, and far, far away in Never Never Land,
telephones were few and far between.  Usually they were mounted on the kitchen wall or sat ponderously on a desk or drawing table in the den.  Few folks had private lines, two and four party were the most common.  But in the back country where my grand folks lived, ten party lines still ruled the day.  We children had to ask permission to use the telephone and we knew that we had best be quick about it.  Mother had a little three minute hour glass for timing eggs.  She'd turn it up when we dialed the phone and we were to bring it back to her before the last of the sand had run its course. 

When we were away from home we usually carried a nickel tucked in our pocket in order to call home if we were going to be late.  But we'd better have a really good reason for being late.  It was no problem finding a telephone.  Pay phones were on every major street corner and in most stores. 

So how, you may ask, did we "stay in touch" when we had no cell phone or Snaggle Tooth or HiPod or Gizzmos dangling from our belt or around our necks? 

Why, we just walked up to our friends front door and knocked or rang the bell.  Pop!  Out someone would come with big smiles and invite us in.  With good friends we would just walk in the kitchen door and yodel. 

Yes, strange as it now sounds, we actually talked face to face.  And we touched, too!  Wrestling, holding hands, hugging and when no one was looking we even kissed. 

We sat, a bunch of us, on the living room floor spinning old platters on the tinny phonograph, singing at the top of our voices, because we knew all the words to all the tunes. 

We gathered at the malt shop and sucked up sodas and laughed and hollered and carried on without a single phone interrupting us.  We actually looked each other in the eye and never once had to text anyone or rush home to check our computer email. 

How did we exist?  I'll tell you how.  We were happier and not rushing about trying to stay in touch with dozens of imaginary friends.  Our friends lived right nearby.  And if they moved, we wrote things called letters. 

 

Curious Carl