Skip to main content

Rambling thoughts





Are there still telephone operators? I remember dialing (even actually dialing on a rotary phone!) 0 - to call collect or reverse the charges. Mostly to my parents because I didn't have the dime (yes a dime!!) to call home to ask for a ride or to ask if I could go to a friend's house after school. Like rotary phones, I wonder if operators are a thing of the past . . .

 I just did a quick Google search and there were job listings for telephone operators. Interesting!! Particularly because I think Google has largely replaced another relic of the past - calling information to get a phone number for a person or business. I'm not sure if these calls were answered by operators between calls from adolescent girls calling their parents collect or if there were people in a room with a lot of phone books looking up numbers for callers.

 Which makes me think of another past relic, phone books. These often unwieldy tomes were delivered once a year and depending on the city or town there might even be a separate book called the Yellow Pages for businesses. Google and other forms of technology have replaced the usefulness of these books. I loved the scene in "The Jerk" when Steve Martin's character is excited to see his name in print in the phone book, saying to family he's "finally a somebody"! Of course their demise cannot be attributed solely to Google or the World Wide Web, it might also have to do with our growing reliance on cell phones.

 According to an Associated Press article (that I found via Google) 45.9 percent of all households still have a landline and 39 percent have both a landline and a cell. So that could explain why there are job listings for operators and pay phones may be sparse but they do still exist and phone books are thinner and used less, but it I'm willing to wager that no one reading this still has (or more precisely is using)one of these:
Hold the phone while I Google that!
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

It's not a popularity contest, but ...

Lefties and Other Exceptional People

I have had the opportunity to do a lot of driving lately - back-and-forth to Wabash College and to-and-from Holland, Grand Rapids and East Lansing. It's given me lots of time to think and ponder the greater mysteries of the world; like the purpose of life, why my thumbnails always break first, the speed at which a state police officer will actually pull you over for and the theory of relativity. Oh, not THE theory of Relativity - with a capital 'R", created by Mr. Genius Einstein. No, my own theory of relativity - with a lower case 'r'. Created by this less-than-genius mother of three and wife of one! My theory is that the absolute worst drivers are those that drive exclusively in the left lane (I call them lefties) and the ones that believe the rules of the road apply to everyone except them (I call them exceptional people). I call it my own theory of relativity because these drivers are relatively unaware of how to drive. You know the ones that are going the spe...
1 comment
Read more

Rolling, Rolling, Rolling

I put my pride aside and got my ass off the grass and into the wheelchair. {I spent a couple minutes deciding whether to put an exclamation mark after that declaration or to put the period after that statement. I think the period better suits my mood about getting said ass into the wheelchair!} On July 4, Saugatuck has a wonderfully unique parade that includes quirky participants like the artsy-fartsy campers at OxBow art colony and the LGBT members of a local foundation along with the more traditional participants like Girl Scouts, fire trucks, and local politicians. It had been a couple years since I had been to the parade, this year, though, my Mom and sister were in town and I wanted to take them. So we loaded up in the van, including Kerri's wheelchair and my own. Once we parked, John asked if I wanted to use my chair and I initially balked but then remembered that it can be a long, hot parade and it might be better to have a place to sit. So, I acquiesced and took the cha...
2 comments
Read more

Vulnerability hangover

I recently blogged about my own #MeToo experiences and then went silent. (At least on the blog). Those posts have been read by over 1000 people, and that's a lot for this tiny little blog about living a life with MS and God and with a sense of humor. Suddenly, I felt like I was living in a world where people that read my blog had x-ray vision and could see my nakedness - but I didn't know who they were. It wasn't a good feeling. And then I heard someone discuss Brene Brown, in particular what she describes as a 'vulnerability hangover'. It's essentially the feeling of regret, like after a night of binge drinking, when you think "What did I do/say?" and then "I think I'll just hide out from the world." If you've never had that experience, kudos to you. It's shame, pure and simple, ugly and raw. So, now I'm on a Brene Brown binge, including all of her TED talks. Including this one on shame:  Brene, listening to shame ...
Post a Comment
Read more