“Hello Operator—Give me No. 9 . . .”
When Scottish immigrant Alexander Graham Bell invented the first telephone in 1876, he could not have imagined he was setting the first domino in place for what would become a world obsession.
The earliest phone systems consisted of just two instruments used mostly by businesses with a phone in each of two nearby buildings. But nothing could hold back the need for chatter and from the early 1900s onward, service expanded, became a necessity of life, and in the last decades has exploded to epic proportions throughout the world. I’m sure, if they could, some people would have their cells surgically inserted into the side of their heads.
One of my first full-time jobs after I left home was as a switchboard operator. It was fun, and my boss, Darlene Knox, became a life-long friend. All of the operators were women—replacing the initial all-boy operators who were too impatient and cursed a lot. When someone wanted to make a call they’d lift their receiver and the switchboard would light up. The nearest operator would snap her plug into the board and, as instructed, say, “Operator.” You could ask for information, directions, a phone number or, in small towns, someone by name—and people did.
Almost everyone was on a party line and the ring for each number was marked around the switchboard opening for that line. We’d plug the outgoing cord into the correct slot and ring according to the code—two shorts, one long, a long and a short, and so on. Sometimes there were as many as ten on a party line in rural areas like ours. When the indicator light told us the call was over, we’d unplug. Only one call at a time could be received and long phone calls were not the norm. Sometimes someone else on the line would interrupt saying they needed the phone so “get the hell off.” People generally talked loudly into their receivers to be sure the other person could hear them—it was not unusual for people to yell, “Can you hear me?” That has not changed.
Lily Tomlin in her famouse role as Ernestine.
Lily Tomlin’s unforgettable character “Ernestine” may have been exaggerated a bit, but there were admittedly some hilarious and enlightening moments for us operators during slow times—and if the chief wasn’t looking—when we carefully pushed open a key to listen in on conversations, love talk, or gossip to help pass the time. Perhaps this was the birth of “hacking”—invasion of privacy without probable cause, but without evil intent.
The “need to know” when you really don’t is so human. Comedians back then riffed this phenomena in side-splitting skits such this one with Lily Tomlin as Ernestine and this wrong number scene with Carol Burnette and Tim Conway.
When dial service came in, the eavesdropping party was over. In the early 1950s, on the new equipment. Viewed today, they too seem like comedy. Earlier phone numbers had names, not just numbers—such as OVerland 9-1049 and UN3-7728. Some became iconic in movies—Butterfield 8 for example, with Elizabeth Taylor starring as a Manhattan call girl in an intense drama in 1960. These names were easier to remember than the 10 or 11 digits we have to use today and often had hints of danger or romance attached to them. Phones rang piercingly and, in the middle of the night, could frighten us as disquieting portents of bad news.
As I end 2015 reading the history and evolution of today’s ubiquitous communication device, I am struck by how essential it has become to continually reach out to others, to confirm our ideas, our appointments, and even our grocery choices, to connect digitally to an extent that overshadows our immediate surroundings. Creative solutions and ideas require quiet internal time to develop, to ignite in our unconscious. The distraction of continuous chatter short circuits those essential moments as our lives tick by.
One of my resolutions for 2016 is to maintain a better balance between the digital and the divine—allowing space for those important instances when we rise above the noise to the rare, electric insight within the cathedral of our minds.
Were he alive today, Alexander Graham Bell would be sequestered in his laboratory, ignoring social-media friend requests and the siren call of “You’ve got mail.” Maybe I could tweet him in the great beyond--# # #