May 30, 2013 Telephone Shopping

Shopping for a new mobile phone got me to thinking about the phone of the past and how it was used.
First, remembrance when phones were not mobile.  They were stationery then. They either sat on a desk/table or hung on a wall.  If you were away from home  you had to enter a big coffin like box, put some  coins in a slot and dial a number by spinning a wheel. The clicking of the dial was the assurance that the number you wanted was effectively entered.  If you didn't have the coins you could dial O and tell another human being (the operator who was always a lady) to reverse the charges.  That  in itself was a test of the degree of friendship.  If the other party  would not accept the charges they were either not close family or close friend.
The phone number began with two letters which which represented a word.  Our home number began with IN- Independence, My Aunts number was HI- Hickory, My Grandparents was FL- Flatbush.

The first phone I recall was a black box device that sat on a round "phone table" .  There was actually a piece of furniture specifically designed for that purpose.  It was two layered table. On the second layer sat a "phone book", actually two books, the white pages for personal numbers and the yellow pages which was for business.
The second phone i remembered was a pink phone that hung on the kitchen wall.  My mother  often used that phone to make a faux call to the "bad boys home" when we misbehaved.  It  took awhile for us to figure out that the voice on the other end was that of my Aunt Mary who was duplicitous in this attempt to get us to behave.

My first phone as an adult was a "princess phone".   I also recall that one didn't buy a phone  one merely subscribed for the service from the singular service provider "AT & T. ( the American Telegraph and Telephone  Company).  The company provided the phone.

Phones back then  provided for oral to aural communication, only.
Today i had to think about whether i wanted a camera, whether i wanted an android or apple sytsem, if  i wanted 3G, 4S or 4 G, a qwerty key board or a touchscreen   Not to mention the provider- AT& T, Bing, T mobile, Virgin, or Verizon.
There were so many choices that i could not make a choice,  I long for the "old days of simplicity".