COMMUNICATIONS

I love my Blackberry. Sometimes, I wonder how I ever got along without it. Besides the convenience of making and receiving phone calls no matter where I am, it helps me get from one place to another with its GPS program, it stores hundreds of friends’ and relatives’ phone numbers, it provides me with a calendar to help me keep up with all my appointments, and it provides me with a notepad to store the information I am constantly forgetting. And let’s not forget the picture-taking feature.

Recently, after sending a text message to my hairdresser, telling him I needed a trim, he messaged me back asking who I was. I’m not really very good at  texting, so I don’t do it very often. And since I don’t text very often, I’m a little ignorant about how. Okay, VERY ignorant about how.

So, after I got that straightened out, I began contemplating the whole communications industry, particularly telephone communications.

The first phone I remember my family having was when we moved from White Settlement to Ridglea West – our first home that wasn’t a rental. Our phone number then was SU-4547. That was the way phone numbers were identified, by “exchange.” We were in the SUnset exchange. Other exchanges in Fort Worth at the time were EDison (downtown), TErminal, AXminister, ATlas, WAlnut (southside).

Smaller towns often had only one exchange. When making a call, you only had to dial the last four digits of the number. This was the way at was at my grandparents’ in Nacogdoches, and at my aunt’s in Lufkin.

In those days, few people had what were referred to as “private lines.” Only the wealthy or businesses had those. Everyone else had a “party” line. There usually were about four “parties” that shared the line. Each household had a different phone number, of course, but your phone would ring every time a call came to a member of your “party.” Each party had a different ring. Yours may be two long rings (2 longs), or maybe two longs and a short, etc. You had to learn which ring was yours.

Making a call was even trickier. Upon picking up the receiver, you might hear a portion of a conversation between one of your party and their caller. These could go on forever. And often, you found out more about people than you really wanted to know. (“They said that his gallstone was as big as a golf ball! Can you imagine that, Marge?”) It could be maddening. You never knew when you could make a phone call and you never knew when someone was listening in on your conversation (unless you heard the little “click” when they picked up their receiver).


Finally, we were “upgraded” so that if the phone rang in our house, the call was for us. We were still on a party line, but we didn’t have to count the rings.


Our final upgrade was to a private line. At that time, our phone number changed to the new exchange, PErshing. An extra number was added to our number as well. So, our number became PE8-4547. Of course, with all the changes being made, it still wasn’t a perfect world. Due to the change, our number was just one digit off from that of the local Singer Sewing Machine company. We were forever getting calls from women wanting to know if their machine was ready to be picked up or if their buttonholes were done, or if the alterations to their dress were complete. Once, Mom got so frustrated that she answered, “Yes, you can come pick them up right away.” Imagine the surprise both to the Singer folks and to this lady! I thought it was hilarious.


When we moved to Benbrook in 1960, we moved into the CIrcle exchange. We were then CI9-1709. We also got a much more modern phone. And we had multiple phones! We had one in the kitchen, one in my room, and one in Mom & Dad’s room! And they all were beige, instead of black! Actually, mine was an avocado green.


Later, in high school, I became the envy of my friends when I got a Princess phone and my own phone number! And you know, for the life of me, I don’t remember that number?


While attending the University of Texas at Austin in the early ‘70s, I worked in the “T-Unit” at Sears. Back then, Sears had a catalog shopping service. The T-Unit made routine calls to regular catalog customers, telling them about the most recent sales offers. We had card files on our customers, showing family members and their sizes, as well as their most recent purchases. We would call our customer with lines like, “Hello, Mrs. Janek? This is Carolyn at Sears catalog. How are you doing tonight? I wanted to let you know that we have those percale sheets you like so well on special right now. Could I send you out a couple sets?” These “suggestion” sales got you a spiff bonus. If the customer called us and we sold them something other than what they originally called about, that was another spiff.


One night, I came across a card that showed the phone number as T8. Huh? My supervisor explained that this customer lived in Pflugerville, then just a small farming town just a little north of Austin, and Pflugerville had its own telephone exchange and “switchboard.” In order to call this customer, I had to call the long-distance operator (there was no such thing as “Direct Distance Dialing” or area codes – that came much later) and ask for Pflugerville.


That’s when things got interesting:


“Long Distance Operator, how may I assist you?”


“I’d like to place a call to Pflugerville, please.”


“One moment please.”

“Pflugerville, this is Helen.”

 

“Uh, Helen, I’d like number T8 please.”

“Oh, honey, they’re not home right now. They went over to Houston to visit her sister. They’ll be back next Tuesday, though, if you want to call back then.”

“Uh, thanks, uh Helen. Thanks.”

That’s one giant leap from that Pflugerville switchboard to my Blackberry!