It seems to me that everyone between the ages of 14 and 30 today has a cell phone glued to one of their hands. And, most times they have their face focused on the brightly lit screen, while they rapidly type some sort of text message, most likely meaningless. These people don't know what they are missing.
My parents used a phone like that shown above; a photo I recently took while touring a local residence. I remember as a kid playing with such a phone that my grandma had (she used it until she passed away). Where she lived in a small Southern Missouri town, you picked up the hand set on her phone and an operator answered. You then gave the operator the number to call, or if you did not know it the the name of the person, and she made the connection. If no one answered, the operator would tell you no one was at home.
As I grew older we used a standard black, MA Bell telephone, with rotary dial, and used numbers such as MA 3-8113. No area codes then, and when we wanted to call long distance we spoke to an operator and asked for "call collect", which meant that the recipient of our call paid for it.
There was only one ringer type then, a loud but small clanging bell that immediately got your attention when it rang. We knew not of "ring tones". We had long extensions on the cord that attached to the wall plug, so we could walk around while using the phone. There was no "call waiting", no "caller ID", and best of all, no robo-sales calls, or donor solicitations seeking our money.
Somehow, it seems better then. At least it does for me.
