. . .- – -. . . Operator, can I make a collect call

. . .- - -. . . Operator, can I make a collect call

Ladies, can you believe we use to have to sit home waiting by the phone for
"our date" to call?
Now we can be anywhere and receive the call!

I recall when we only had to dial 4 numbers if we were calling someone in town.
I was too young to recall the party line-
where you actually shared a phone line with another household or two.
hmm talk about "big government listening in" - this was just the norm back then!

My earliest memory of the evolution of the phone, goes back to the time we visited my dad at my grandfather's trucking business.
Watching the switchboard operator work the manual plug-in cords...
was a real treat, Winnie was her name.
I had never seen anything like it- it felt like a magic show.
One ring dingy...

Another piece of phone history now extinct.

Slowly, the rotary dial was replaced with buttons, but we were still attached to the wall.
Freedom arrived with the cordless phones.

And the best liberation of freedom was the answering machine,
finally you could leave your house,
and not worry about missing a message.

Then one day, the phone disappeared.
I can't remember if I even have a phone jack left after my renovation--
there's just no longer a need.

Now, I sometimes think about how the words connected to these times have faded too.
Connected...just a little pun.

These"ancient objects" have gone extinct in our grandchildren's lifetime.

It's as if a dictionary committee meets every decade to quietly retire old meanings--, like rotary...
once it meant a phone dial,
now it's a traffic rotary,
which,
by the way,
used to be a traffic circle-
or was it roundabout?

Hmmm  roundabout might just describe how I tell a story-- circling through the past,
finding meaning in things that once seemed meaningless.

Where have all the phone booths gone?
How's Clark Kent supposed to turn into my Superman now?

Ok I am going to hang up now,
Ugh, that use to feel so powerful.

Now, I will end the call..

Wait,
can you?
I lost the screen....