T. GAMBLE: On the glorious days of old-school landlines

I’m worried that my 13-year-old son and 14-year-old daughter may be missing out on an important part of life because of the advent of the iPhone. I’m not talking about the fact that no one under 20 can now carry on a face-to-face conversation or the fact that no young adult can move more than 5 feet without checking their phone.

No, I accept these things as just modern-day facts of life.

I’m talking about the fact that they will miss the adventures of the old-style landline phones that I grew up with and loved. Yes, there was a day when if someone called, you could not tell who was calling unless you actually picked up the phone and answered. Today’s snowflakes might not be able to handle that extreme uncertainty.

I’d answer the phone, and it was like picking up a hand grenade and not being sure if the pin was pulled. It might be some girl I was interested in, or it might be “nobody can get her off the phone Aunt Bertha.” You could not block a number. An irate individual could hold you hostage by calling over and over until you answered. Boy, those were the good ole fun times there, I tell you.

I remember being about my son’s age and deciding to call a young girl, let’ call her Cindy, to ask her to go steady with me. I knew she wanted to go steady, not because I talked with her a lot, but rather because Cathy told me that Sally overheard Cindy say she liked me. In the seventh grade that was all it took to ask someone to go steady.

I’d spend all day trying to muster the courage to call Cindy. Finally, I’d dial the number. It would ring one time, and I’d chicken out and hang up. My kids today can’t do that. Cindy would call right back and say, “T., why did you call my phone and then hang up?” I would then be forced to move to the outskirts of Oklahoma, living in an abandoned mine shaft and joining the Branch Davidian Cult, where I would have died in the Waco inferno, rather than face Cindy and admit, yes, it was me who called and then chickened out.

Seventh-grade boys will forgive most any transgression, from throwing up in the lunch room to passing out at the sight of a spider, but they will never forget a boy who chickens out on asking a girl to go steady. The offending boy may as well just buy a chicken suit and wear it to school because everywhere he goes he will be met with clucking noises and snide remarks.

Worse yet, my children will never know the horrors of waiting for your father to get off the phone so you could call Cindy, or hoping, if Cindy was calling, she would not give up because the line was busy for two hours while he talked about Richard Nixon and the war protesters. Yep, there was one phone. There was no such thing as multiple phone calls all at once. The pecking order was Mama, Daddy, oldest child to youngest. It was usually better for me to just write a letter than to wait last in line.

I’m sure my kids will survive not knowing the pleasures of landline service, but I really miss it. “Hello, who? Aunt Bertha? I’m sorry you must have the wrong number.”

Email T. Gamble at [email protected].