It was avocado green. Two pieces. A 10-foot-long, straggly cord connecting them. And it was mounted on the wall in the kitchen of my childhood home.
That landline phone was a memorable part of my childhood. And when it rang, we answered it — without even knowing who was on the other end of the line. There were no robocalls. No telemarketing. No scams. Or, at least, none that I was aware of. I not only remember the phone; I remember our home phone number, too. It is cemented in my brain along with other vital stuff like my junior high gym locker combination.
If I recall, I don’t think my parents even owned our phone. It was the property of Ma Bell, and Mom and Dad paid for it as part of their monthly fee.
If I really dig deep into the memory bank, I could probably name every phone we had in our homes through the years. There weren’t that many. Of course, the rotary dial phone was eventually replaced by the push-button model, which was later replaced by the cordless phone with the giant antennae, and, eventually, those smaller handheld rechargeable ones.
If I was challenged to name the cell phones I personally have had throughout my adult years, the struggle would be greater. I really don’t know how many I owned. I know I started with one of those Motorola brick phones in the early 1990s. I had another one mounted in my car at one point. Many flip phones. A Blackberry or two. A Palm Treo, which was my favorite. And buckets of expensive iPhones.
Imagine if, like in my parents’ days, the phone companies provided these modern phones as part of our monthly package. And sent a repair person to our homes to fix them. All for a modest fee — and without the concern of being tracked by Big Tech every minute of the day or the fear of getting brain cancer from the devices.
We have all seen trends come and go… and then come back again. One has to wonder if the landline phone may reappear as a matter of necessity or, more likely, as a vintage or retro return. In avocado green. Harvest gold. Burnt orange.
No robocalls. No telemarketing. No scams. It sounds kind of nice. The 10-foot-long, straggly cord? Admittedly, not so much.
But, who knows? If those phones returned, we might even start answering them again.
Have a great week, and thanks for reading.
Shane Goodman
President and Publisher
Big Green Umbrella Media
shane@dmcityview.com
515-953-4822, ext. 305 | 
