BY KYLE LOVERN
FOR THE CITIZEN

Things sure have changed when it comes to calling someone on the telephone.

Nowadays it is nothing to see a youngster with a cellphone in hand.

When we baby boomers were growing up, we were lucky to have a landline telephone in our homes.

We were fortunate enough to have a phone in our house at Nolan. But I remember, when I was very young, we were on a “party line.” That meant we were sharing the line with a couple of neighbors. It was nothing to pick up the phone and hear someone else in a conversation.

Eventually, we got our own personal line. It’s funny how I can still remember our home phone number all these years later and a couple of numbers of my best friends.

I’m not quite old enough to remember turning a crank on a phone like on “Andy Griffith” to get the operator (Sarah) to make a call. But imagine that compared to the way things have evolved throughout the years.

We had a yellow phone mounted on the wall in the kitchen with an extra-long cord so you could stretch it into another room or perhaps mom could stretch it over near the stove as she cooked the evening supper.

Many folks could not afford a home phone in the 1960s or even 70s, so many times, a neighbor would come by to ask to borrow your phone.

Who can remember telephone booths? Those small square glass cages with a pay phone that cost you a dime to make a call. I remember using the ones across from the Williamson Field House to call home after practice or a game. And is anyone else claustrophobic like me and had trouble opening those doors and getting out of those glass boxes? There were phone booths located all around – outside businesses, outside post offices, or just along the highway near a carryout along many roadways. You were lucky to have a dime to make a call in those days.

Many of the early phone numbers were only four or five digits. That is when telephones were far and few between.

If you made a long-distance call to an out-of-state family member or friend, it cost even more on your monthly bill. The phone company charged by the minute. This could run up your bill, so long-distance calls were usually short and sweet.

I can even remember it was a long-distance call from the Williamson area to Kermit!

Eventually phones started coming in different colors, and many houses had extensions in other rooms. We had a beige desk phone on an old-style phone table and chair.

As things progressed, many more homeowners had landlines in their houses.

Then we started to see cordless phones in the early 1980s. One could carry the phone from room to room or into the bedroom for a private call to their significant other.

Eventually, you were able to put a phone in your car. They were bulky and had several attachments. You had to have an external antenna running outside on the hood of your vehicle, and it was difficult to get a signal in many places. Cell towers were few and far between. Heck, in our area, cellphone service is still tough to get due to our mountainous terrain and fewer cell towers.

But those car phones also got smaller and more portable and affordable.

Now almost everyone has a cellphone.

If you are like me, I went kicking and screaming into the world of cell phones. I’m still limited as to my use and talent on a cellphone, but it’s almost necessary in this day and age. (However, we still can’t get cell service where we live and have to have a landline.)

But to keep in touch with my children and grandkids, I had to learn to text. I still have difficulty doing this with my big, bulky fingers trying to punch those small letters on a small, flat cellphone.

Not only can you make calls and text on a cellphone now, but most are like something out of Star Trek. Not only can you call, but you can get on the internet like a miniature computer, play games, take pictures, make videos and do about everything but call Spock or Scotty to get beamed up to the Starship Enterprise.

It’s amazing how far the technology has come, and it seems newly updated phones come out from the various companies every couple of months.

What is amazing is that my 6-year-old granddaughter can work one better than me. Most kids these days can, but they’ve grown up with computers, video games and cellphones.

However, I bet none of my granddaughters would be able to dial a number on an old rotary phone! So at least I have that on them. They would look at it like something strange – like the antiques they now are.

Many of us had no idea when we were watching “The Jetsons” cartoon show or a sci-fi movie and people were watching each other on a screen while making a call would become a reality.

Now many meetings are held via Zoom, and many phone calls are by “FaceTime.”

We’ve come a long way from calling an operator to make a phone call and the old party lines.

Alexander Graham Bell had no idea what his invention in 1885 would become decades later.

(Kyle Lovern is a longtime journalist in the Tug Valley. He is now a retired freelance writer and columnist.)