The basic telephone is passé today. We have cell
phones and many people no longer have landlines. I’ve struggled with that
myself. My iPhone is practically another appendage, that and my iPad, but I
still like having a plain ole, everyday telephone. Thinking of the phone and
how it has progressed in my lifetime makes me smile and remember.
As a very young child, I can remember the phone in
my grandparents’ home in Greenville. The main phone was located in a phone
niche built-into the wall about halfway down their hallway. Later there was an
extension in the living room. Their phone number was ED4-9977 (pronounced
“Edison 4, 99 77.”) I’m sure that was not the first derivative of the number,
but it is the earliest one that I can remember. Later it became 334-9977. Their
phone had a dial on it, and it was extremely heavy. No running down the hallway
for fear of tripping over the cord, knocking the phone down, and killing
someone!
My grandmother in Cary, Ep, also had a phone. The
first one of hers that I remember didn’t have a dial. It just had a round plate
in the middle. Although it normally sat on a table in her den, it had a long
cord and could be moved out into the main hallway to sit on a shelf there. Her
phone number was 275-R. Ep had a party line. She did NOT like that party line.
I can remember her complaining a lot about the other people always on the
phone. She would have to pick up and tell them she needed to use the phone so
that she could get them to hang up. I’m sure they really appreciated that!
Later her phone number was changed to 873-2091, once we began to modernize the
system (aka switched to a dial phone.)
We lived just outside on Cary, but not on Highway
61. Phone service didn't reach our house until I was in second grade. I can
still vividly remember my dad driving up to Mrs. Harris’s outside classroom
door. He excused himself and walked through and across the hall to my mom’s
classroom to share the good news with her. “We just got a telephone.” He was
able to let me in on the secret as he walked back through in route to his
truck. Our phone number was 335-J. It later changed to and remains 873-2365.
Our phone was a wall phone. It was in the kitchen,
but with the long cord you could walk into the hallway or my parents’ room to talk.
At that time, there was no dial, so we picked up the phone and Mary Lois was
normally on the other end just waiting for us and would say, "Number,
please." I felt particularly lucky because Mary Lois was my Aunt Alma
Lou’s sister. All I had to ask was for her to let me talk to Ep. If the party
line people weren’t tying up the phone, I could still get right through. If
they were on the phone, Mary Lois could just cut in and ask them to hang up
because there was a very important call that needed to be connected! Talking to
my grandmother was very important, after all. Life was so good.
I can even remember the telephone office with the
switchboards being located above the Bank of Anguilla. When local operators
were no longer needed to place calls, the office closed. Eventually, that whole
second floor was removed from the building. Of course, today the whole building
has been torn down and replaced by a beautiful new one.
Our communication abilities have truly evolved over
the years. The crank phone and later phones that were handled by phone
operators changed to dial phones then push button phones. When my son (born in
1984) was in second grade, he went to my school with me one Saturday. While I
was in the office doing something, I asked Andy to walk back to the Teachers’
Lounge to call his dad. In a very few minutes he walked back up to me with the
most awful look on his face. I asked what was wrong, because I knew it had to
be terrible. He looked up at me with the most pitiful eyes and said, “I don’t
know how to make the phone work!” My child of the push-button age had no idea
of how to dial a phone. That was a lost art! I had to walk back to that
old phone, stick his little finger in the dial, turn it until it hit the metal,
pull it out as fast as I could, and repeat for each subsequent digit! He was
amazed that such an antiquated device was able to reach his dad. Today, I
go to him for technology assistance since he is a digital native, not me.
A couple of weeks ago, I visited the Mississippi
Department of Archives and was looking through the microfiche of the Deer Creek
Pilots. The first year to be explored was 1958. I was interested in seeing how
the progression of the Rolling Fork /Cary consolidation was reported. While the
school connection was interesting, I was drawn to the advertisements in the
paper.
Did you know that Crawford Motor
Company (Chevrolet) had 6-J as their phone number while Sharkey Motor Ford was
66? To reach Delta Implement Company, one would say, "104" when
the operator oh so pleasantly stated, "Number, please." I
wonder, if the Chevrolet place was 6-J, who had 1-J? Did anyone? What was
your number? Can you still remember? I’d like to know.
