Watch out for the 360 degree rotations of the wire you complete each time you return the phone call receiver to the hook. One of these days, you are going to have to let the receiver spin free in the middle of a future phone call, or else, hold the whole tangled mess to your chin as you try to finish talking.
Great Thoughts from the Houston Colt .45 Era
…. About the Use of Telephones
- Unless you like standing up and trying to talk while someone else is washing dishes, never locate your phone high on the kitchen wall at home.
- Try to make sure that Ma Bell installs your phone in a room where its comfortable to sit, but never so close to the bedroom that you have to take the phone off the hook to keep callers from ruining a beautiful nap.
- Small pillows or blankets make good sound mufflers to phone rings you do not wish to hear.
- Always have a pencil and paper handy at the location spot of your phone. It will be helpful to taking messages and writing down phone numbers of new callers that you probably do not presently have in your Roll-A-Deck files.
- Remember. – If you do not have the phone number recorded somewhere, there will be no way to get it later from a silent phone, if you do not know who placed the call.
- Remember too. – People are only reachable by phone when they are near the instrument that connects them by wire with others. Try to build at least a mental list on the best times to try and reach certain others by phone.
- Make sure you always have up-to-date copies of the white and yellow pages near your phone. That one step alone will give you about a 95% chance of finding and reaching the party you wish to call at the right time.
- Phone technology is improving by leaps and bounds. New advances in swivel hooks have experts optimistic that we shall soon enough have a new phone connection wire that will not tangle and have to be unswiveled manually in the middle of an important phone call.
- With telephone lines that do not entangle coming our way soon enough, what more could we hope for in the future?
- One final consoling thought: If you are tired of getting phone calls, simply go for a walk, take a drive, or go to a ball game or movie. The phone will never catch up with you there.
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Bill McCurdy
Principal Writer, Editor, Publisher
The Pecan Park Eagle
The Pecan Park Eagle 
July 1, 2018 at 4:59 pm |
Reminds me of the little house I bought here 25 years ago, it had a wall phone with one of those extra long cords that dangled all the way to the floor and I never really gave it much thought but I suppose the previous owner liked to continue working at the kitchen counter or even go sit down in the dining area and talk the cord was that long. I hated it but on the other hand my dog loved it, kept the dog busy tugging and chewing on the cord for 11 years. I don’t miss the house or the phone cord so much but I do miss the old dog.
July 1, 2018 at 7:55 pm |
My father worked for Southwestern Bell Telephone Company in Houston and later in Austin, and he brought home booklets on phone etiquette. The telephone was used to make or receive short calls–not to jabber on mindlessly for minutes or hours on end.
We had a slim phone book for Pearland, but I used a copy of the massive Houston White Pages to sit on, so I could see over the steering wheel of our ’56 Chevrolet 210.
Now, I have no cell phone, I-phone, blue tooth or other device and never answer my land line unless I recognize the person identified by the Caller ID.
July 2, 2018 at 7:03 pm |
I remember picking up the phone to make a call and hearing two people already talking on the line. The party line in San Antonio didn’t go away until I was at least 6, maybe older. I still remember our first home phone number from those long-ago years: PErshing 2-8375. What archaic device will my son be remembering 44 years from now? Ah yes, cell phones. How did people manage with those relics?