Mar11

‘is there no privacy in this family?′ everyone at the table answers, ‘no.’- ashley elston

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ah, those wonderful memories

of that wall mounted phone

usually yellow in most houses

began with a 3-foot cord

eventually a 30-foot cord

so important

for one’s privacy

if the phone rang

and the call was for one of us

we’d travel with that cord

way beyond any expected limits

into a corner or another room

with closed door

where we could

listen, gossip, tell jokes, share news, talk about nothing, cry about breakups, listen to music together, compare who got invited to what, predict who was going to ask who out, muse about crushes, complain about our parents and sibs, find out what the homework was because we weren’t listening in class, discuss what you were going to wear tomorrow, make plans…

and then

after what seemed to be about 5-7 minutes

one of your sibs

would start whining, complaining, knocking on the door, telling on you

for being on the phone ‘for hours’

 they were waiting for an important call

or had to make an important call

and they were just going to die

if they didn’t get to use the phone right away

the battle for the phone began

 if someone had to walk

through the room that cord was stretched across

 a taut tightrope about to snap

they had to lift it and walk under

like playing phone limbo

 the curly cord

would get all twisted up

because you had been twirling it around your finger

while you were on your call

you had to wait as the whole thing unspooled

sometimes standing on a chair to do so

when you finally got off of the call

your sibling began the whole process all over again

with her friend

until

another sibling jumped into the ring

to go through the whole ritual again

with her friend

until

your parents

or the friend’s parents

put the hammer down

and said

they were waiting for or had to make an important call

it was time for dinner

 not to stretch out the phone cord

one sib even figured out how to disconnect the cord

right where it connected to the phone

it was an ongoing struggle

for privacy,  phone access, and control

 it was the best, like being in a phone derby

and sometimes i won.

‘the shared phone was a space of spontaneous connection for the entire household.’

 — Julia Cho; The Atlantic—How the Loss of the Landline Is Changing Family Life

 

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69 responses »

  2. I remember living in rural California, where our phone was a “party line“. Not only did we have to negotiate access with our siblings, but with every teenager on the street. I remember our phone number (Yorktown7–7002) and I can even remember the time the long twisty cord snapped around to mate so inevitably with the hair I was twirling that it had to be cut out.

    So why can’t I remember the number to ring my own cellphone to figure out where I left it this time?

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  8. Oh man… We never did get the super long cord but my father did get fed up and got us girls our own line; which, to be honest, was mostly mine as the eldest ;-)

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  9. It was very rare to see such long phone cords in the UK until I was in my 30s and had one on a wall-mounted phone in my own house. Most house phones were situated in entrance hallways, and very few houses had extensions in other rooms. My parents only complained about my time on the phone if we were paying for the call, otherwise they never interrupted me. Because hallways were rarely heated, in cold weather there was little incentive to stay too long on the phone.

    Best wishes, Pete.

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  10. I, too, remember the phone number at the home I grew up in, which initially started with two letters followed by numbers. Now, I can’t remember my cell phone number but I’ve been asked for it many times, but I can’t tell you anyone else’s number, not even nearest and dearest.

    I remember twisting the cord around my fingers, but there was a chair by the telephone and we were expected to sit there when we were on a call. We were also timed when we were on the phone. And never, ever could we be on the phone after 7 PM on weekdays. that was when the price of long distance dropped and was strictly a time for the parents to make phone calls.

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  12. I remember — like josborne below…twisting the cord around my fingers to get it to relax just a tad…enough for me to scooch into the bathroom and try to close the door. 😜

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  16. Oh those were the days… what a beautiful recall Beth. In case of out of station calls, we had the middleman Exchange which would not only connect the trunk calls but evesdrop as well…at times butting in with a wise comment or a time check!😄

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  17. I remember those days. I enjoyed the way you brought back so many memories for me. My office cord would get so tangled up and a VP would stop in my office and untangle it every day. One day he came in with a new cord and replaced the old one. Then he mounted the cord in a shadow box with a brass plate that read “Tanglecord” by EA Wickham. 😁

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  22. Our first phone back on the farm was on a party line. So not only did we share our phone within our house, but with a while bunch of sometimes rubbernecking neighbors. When Dad not so politely asked a neighbor to get off the line because he had to call the veterinarian, the neighbor obliged. We still have a wall phone, albeit white and push button, not rotary dial.

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  24. As a couple of people have already mentioned, I’m old enough to remember the days of party lines. You’d pick up the phone to make a call and someone else would already be on the line. If there was ever a time not to gossip, that was it.

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  25. EM3-4476 was my Mom’s phone number for the last 51 years of her life. She eventually got a cell phone for emergencies but never used it and never answered it. In the late 1960’s, my Dad’s company had a phone installed in his Chevrolet Impala convertible because his job required him to be on the road quite a bit between factory locations. You rang an operator who placed the call. My brother and I sure had fun with that status symbol whenever we were allowed to borrow his car.

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  26. Those were the days! When I was young we still had the old black ringer dial phones. I remember when it was a party line and different rings told who was being called. That did not last long and soon we were on a private line. How fun! Great memories.

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  27. When I was a kid (one of five), phone time was precious. Our old black phone plugged in, so we’d take it into a coat closet/private phone booth near the front door for our conversations. As an adult parent, still some years ago, we had a phone just like the one in the picture, except it was red. And it was mounted right next to the door to the laundry room which, naturally, made a great phone booth. Love that second picture!

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