I am So Old

Two things happened which remind me that I am really old when you think about how fast things are changing. Many have noted that most kids today don't have any idea about vinyl records, even though the needle-across-the-record sound effect is so common in TV shows for the young-uns. I don't think my kids would even recognize an LP if they saw it. For that matter, I realize that by calling it "vinyl" that puts me into a particular generation. My mom would probably point out that I wouldn't recognize a lacquer phonograph disc if I saw it...

I digress. It's telephones that are really really different. We are seriously spoiled by cell phones now, and most kids have no concept of having to stop and find a pay phone (that's a good thing-- I certainly don't miss that particular annoyance). I'll bet you cannot find a 15-year old who can even recognize a pay phone, much less know how to use one. How about phone booths? What would Superman do today? Head for Starbucks I guess.

Alexei, my 10.9 year old, asked me yesterday, "What is that thing on the phone that people put their finger in and turn it in a circle?" Haw! I told him the technical details are too much to go into (I look forward to the day when I can explain to him in detail why that particular user interface was chosen) but I said that is how people used to dial telephones. Weird, huh? Then I realized that we still use the word dial, but I havent found the dial on my cell phone yet. In fact, I said, all telephones used to be like that.

I did not go on to say that those phones HAD to be connected to the wall by a wire. Hey people-my-age, remember when you had to get the really long coily line to the handset so you could at least walk around the kitchen while on the phone? When I was in college, my girlfriend and I had a phone which had a really long cord to the wall, and a really long cord between the handset and the base. The long cord to the wall was motly transparent, so there were spare loops of it always getting hooked on someone's foot, which would spectacularly rip the phone off of whatever shelf it was resting on. This led us to label the phone the "Attack Phone" because it would ambush you when you walked by.


A few minutes ago, I heard a busy signal in a movie. Here's another thing that kids won't understand. Voice mail and call waiting is pervasive, so there is essentially no time at which a kid will hear a busy signal and know what that means. What, we are not busy anymore? For that matter, younger kids use cell phones so much, and land lines less and less, the whole notion of a dial tone is unknown. What other sounds of early telephony are already lost?