Hello, Central, give me 384, please...

Yesterday I used my Blackberry on a conference call. I pushed the speaker button and had a nice, comfortable conversation. There were people from different parts of the country on the call. It happens everyday. And yet I can seldom use a cell phone without thinking of the first phone call in my memory. The phone hung on the back wall of Pa Gray's general store in Kelso, Tennessee and I had to stand on a nail keg to reach it. I took the receiver off the hook and moved my mouth as close to the speaker as possible. My grandfather held my hand on the crank and helped me turn it. A bell at the top of the phone clattered and a voice came through the pound and a half receiver - a real human being - and said "number please." I said, "Central, give me 384, please." In a matter of seconds, my grandmother was on the other end. "Pa said we'd be home for supper at 5:30," I reported through the large, oblong speaker.

"Okay, baby," my grandmother said, "I'll see you in a little while."

I stretched and and stood on tiptoes to replace the receiver on the hook and my grandfather lifted me off the nail keg. My little brain was overwhelmed with what had just taken place. My grandmother's voice coming out of that big wooden box! What would they think of next??

Of course, things changed. Like a scene from the movie "Time Machine," these enigmatic instruments morphed their way through the end of the twentieth century and into the twenty-first. Phones became more sophisticated and sat on countertops and desks. The lady named "Central" disappeared somewhere along the way and calls became self-serve. Dials appeared on the front. Phone numbers got longer and had letters added to the front of them. The first conference calls were actually snoopy neighbors on party lines. A pink phase came and went just as did Princess phones...I think there were even pink Princess phones. (No self-respecting sweaty young boy would dare be caught near one!) Dials evaporated and became pushbuttons. Phones appeared on walls once again: much more compact and sophisticated. Then, lo and behold, wires disappeared (no way!) and through a process that I've yet to wrap my challenged intellect around, sounds travel thousands of miles in tenths of seconds THROUGH THE AIR!

I don't know, but many times I would just as soon be back in Pa's store, balancing on a nail keg just beyond the heat of the pot-bellied stove, and trying to connect with "Central" one more time. But hold that thought, I hear the ringtone of my Blackberry and I need to take that call. Let's talk again soon...