Sounds Of The Past

Friday evening Emilie comes into the family room with our cordless phone handset in hand.  She was trying to call the neighbor across the street to see if he was interested in going with her to free skate at the local ice rink.

She's standing there with a puzzled and confused look on her face, and proceeds to ask the question, "what is this noise?".  She then puts the handset on speaker and redials the neighbor.  We then hear BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP.  Of course us "old timers" are very familiar with this sound - it's a busy signal!  However, Emilie had never heard this before and didn't know what was happening.

Today's youtes are spoiled or perhaps fortunate, with the technologies that are available now; call waiting, caller ID, Facetime, Snap Chat, texting, etc. and don't realize how easy they have it. Everything is instant and at their fingertips.

I recall growing up needing to call the operatior to place a long distance call to Greece.  The operator would need to initiate this process.  We'd either be put you on hold or operator would call back once the call finally got through.  The connection itself was usually terrible at best.  There'd be echoing, and delays, and static, etc. but we'd always be thankful to have gotten through and able to speak to family.

Times have changed, which means I'm getting older, UGH!