Do you always have your cell phone with you – even when you're home?
I don't. It's bad enough having to carry it with me everywhere. So when I'm home, I often leave the %$#@ thing in another room. I really don't get many calls. But what happens is that it will ring at an odd time, and I'll have to get up and make a run for it to answer it. It's kind of silly, isn't it?
But sixty years ago, making a run to get the phone if it was in another room was often the norm, unless you had a few extensions installed around your home. And that's the theme of the two ads below, which both ran in the Journal back on June 4, 1963.
This ad for the Lorain Telephone Company focuses on how a housewife and/or young mother would be affected.
"Whether you're fixing formula, wielding a mop, or just plain taking it easy... there's no nicer time to have your telephone just a reach away," reads the ad copy. "One or more phone extensions in your home is the key to convenience for your entire family."
In the Brady household, for years we had just one extension: in the basement, next to the washer & dryer. Since Mom didn't normally do laundry at night, it was the phone my older brother and I used when we wanted to secretly call our girlfriends, without anyone monitoring our conversation. Unfortunately, my mom became wise to this, and would sometimes throw a load in at that time! Between Mom standing there sorting laundry, and the noise of the various cycles, there wasn't much of an opportunity to utter bon mots – or whisper sweet nothings, either.
Now this ad for the Elyria Telephone Company has the same theme as the other ad – that is, have extensions installed so you don't have to run for the phone when it rings. But in this case, it's the kids doing the running. They don't look like teenagers, so it doesn't make a lot of sense to me, especially since the boy seems to be getting muscled out of the way by his pig-tailed sister.
2 comments:
I leave my phone plugged in on my end table when I go to take a shower, otherwise, it's always on my person.
It's funny, because I was dragged kicking and screaming by the girls to get on when I came down; didn't want one, thought of one as a bother and an intrusion, now, I can't seem to live without one.
I don't carry a phone unless I'm traveling. My time is my time, thank you very much.
We had a single phone at home. On the kitchen side of the wall with the living room. No privacy. At all. And Dad timed the calls. Five minutes, tops. After that, he'd hang it up by clicking the receiver. The old boy had grown up without a phone and despised it. It was just about the only thing he swore about.
"My time is my time, thank you very much," he used to say.
I'm happy I didn't turn out that same way!
Plus... It was a party line with 5 other houses. So even when we were alone there was very little "mooky talk" with sweethearts going on because we *never* knew who might be listening!
And the kids running for the phone is a complete mystery to me. When we were kids, we weren't allowed to touch the phone, let alone answer it.
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