…in baby girl’s hand as a handset rather than an earpiece. Who’d da thunk an earpiece would make a perfectly fitting handset for a toddler?
Hey! Wait! No fair! I had to wait until I reached the magical Sweet 16 for my Trimline phone (remember those? how retro!) in the mid-70’s. My 22 month old granddaughter already gets to have a bluetooth earpiece?
Just kidding! She’s using Dad’s bluetooth earpiece paired with his iPhone to chit chat with Mommy while she’s away from home working. At the same time, Dad’s using the iPhone to take her picture to share with all of us. My, my…we’ve come such a long way with telephones, haven’t we?
I tried to locate an old picture taken in the mid 60’s of my younger brother standing in his high chair in the kitchen playing with the wall mounted rotary phone to share, but couldn’t find it. Even that era of telephone history was a point where we had come a long way from the wood box wall mounted crank phone the Waltons and all their neighbors used. Come to think of it, didn’t they yell, “can you hear me now?!” on their phone, too?
I remember having to wait our turn to use the phone at my Grandparent’s home. It wasn’t a matter of waiting for another family member to get off the phone, though. You had to wait until the party that shared the line aka a party line gave up the shared phone line.
And the phone numbers…EVERGREEN6-3796 rather than 386-3796. Was that supposed to make it easier to remember phone numbers? Before that you had to rely on someone who might have been known as Myrtle the local operator to connect you with the party you were calling.
Couldn’t tell a secret because that’s likely how the rest of the town found out about it because Myrtle could hear your conversation, too. What a career! I bet the National Enquirer would love to be able to hire a few Myrtles and use that old technology today, huh? Especially in Washington DC and state capitals around the country during election season. 
Have you got any pictures of family or friends using old phones? I think it would be interesting and fun to see some of the old phones in use. If you do, let’s create a blogging web of telephone history. Leave a comment here with a link to the blog post where you’ve shared your telephone history, memories, and pictures.
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