Phones today vs. Yesterday

Do you remember back when we had party lines on our phones? Can you imagine this cell phone era generation having to deal with not only sharing one unmovable phone that was tethered to a desk for their whole family, but sharing one phone number with multiple families? They must think we grew up in the Dark Ages! You only answered if it rang your specific ring. At least it was back before telemarketers and robo calls, that might have been worth it right there. We had 7 kids, and in comparison to other families…that number was low. Can you imagine sharing one phone with your parents and 6 siblings, and at one point 5 of us kids were teenagers at the same time?! That would be crippling devastation and perpetual chaos in today’s age. I remember my parents made sure we graduated from a typical landline phone, to one that had a really long cord to keep the peace. That way we could take a call in the kitchen and pull the cord all the way into the garage and “shut the door” on the cord so we could have some semblance of privacy. Half the time the cord would ball into a rat’s nest that we just left for the next person to unwind, or they wouldn’t be able to move far from the handset at all. We also could pull the cord long enough into the entrance to the living room so we could watch one of three channels we got on the television. The TV is a whole other story of archaic times and barbaric existence. We actually had to watch only one of three choices for TV shows, and you either had to all agree on it as a family, or take turns having control of the TV that had no remote control! Then you had to fight about who had to actually get up and change the channel manually by turning a dial! Oh the horror! You also had to physically change the antennae to point north for the Binghamton channels, and south for the Scranton channels, and that’s only if you were lucky enough to have antennas. Even if you did have reception, sometimes the shows were in black and white! Hard to believe we survived such hardships. TV certainly was a miraculous breakthrough in technology beyond the days where the families’ only option was to sit around the living room to just listen to the radio. Times have certainly changed! Whether it’s for better or worse, technology has transformed family dynamics and the pace of change isn’t letting up…so we need to learn to adapt or we’ll get left in the “Dark Ages” like we had when we were growing up!