Another Plug For The Days Of The Party Line
I remember the party line in Hancock, as does James who enjoyed them in Maine. I smiled today when reading Door County’s Keta Steebs, and agree with her completely.
What I can’t do is take the telephone ordeal in stride. I no longer naively expect to hear a live human voice on the other end but I do expect to someday master the infamous “menu” we are expected to plow through before getting to the right department if not the right person. Today’s menus even have menus — just when you laboriously get through to the elusive Complaint Department, you are given another 10 options to choose the complaint you have in mind. If yours isn’t one of them, you then have the privilege of listening to rock music until the complaint-taker is tracked down (some place in India, I suspect).
Actually, when it comes to speedy communication, nothing beats the party line we Coolidge-age kids grew up with. If you were lucky enough to be on a four-party line, there was nothing you wouldn’t know after four hours of listening. Eavesdropping in my day was as common as hacking is today — with equally juicy results.
Another thing I’ve noticed about this new century of ours is that it isn’t nearly as much fun to be in as the old one was. In the old one, I had a job I loved, night parties to attend, shopping expeditions (in two-story stores) and talks with people who sounded the ‘g’ at the end of words.
The ‘g’ thing bugs me too.
Thanks for the comment. I think this is an interesting conversation.
Education, if done correctly from both ends of the process, should be about how to learn, as much as what to learn. I think our high schools do a lousy job with that essential ingredient. I fault them for this. I see college students all the time wanting to be spoon fed, as opposed to thinking thematically or analytically, etc. I also feel deeply that too few value education in and of itself. I would argue that getting a good paying job should not be the prime reason to have an education. How did that wonder as a kid about everything get confused with education is somehow boring, or that reading is not useful…etc?
I don’t think Bill Gates would agree with that time line.
Not everybody needs to go on to a higher grade level.
I messed around in college long enough to end up with
degrees in Ornithology from the U of M, Ann arbor, and
Business Administration, ISU Normal, Illinois.
No big deal. No jobs there. Basically schooling is a way
to learn how to look up stuff. As a product of public education,
it’s still highly over rated.
Craig,
Eeducation is not so over-rated, as too few are brought up today to appreciate that learning in and of itself can be the end result. There was a time when a person went to college and came to understand the world and THEN chose a career path. I think that is the model that produces the most well-rounded mind.
What happened? Childern of fun loving parents became products of public education. I’m thinking the value of a higher education is highly over rated. It took me seven years to crawl through three colleges. But I worked many jobs…the wife totaled up 31 jobs since I was born.
My German friend, Simon, here as a high school exchange student living with the Nelson’s told me as we were sailing that in Germany high school is four years but with an additional two years learning a trade while still in high school making high school six years. A chief, a boot maker, a CNC operater, a seamsteress, nurse, welder, and on and on. By the way the age of concent in Germany for these kids is 16 years old. Hummmm that would save a lot of court time.
I remember party lines too. Even ‘my’ first phone number, PArk 4-5196 on the rotary in Glenview, Illinois. At 1829 George Court. I think I was five years old. Ahhhh the days of Ma Bell before the government broke it up into all these baby bells and what have you cell phone companies.
And Keta is right. Life for my parents was much more fun. After winning WWII nobody gave a hoot if you smoked [ I never smoked nothing ], ate fun food, acted funny at Halloween Parties, had neighborhood block parties, drove what ever gas guzzler you could afford to church, went camping or boating and fishing without a permit, After all the war was over and people needed to get on with life, copulating and having babies, living large on dad’s one wage and mom as a stay at home mother. And mean O’ school teachers that would smote you on the hand with a stick when you got out of line.
Still snickering,