Rockland, Maine — Two Tin Cans and a String

Remember when we used to make a telephone out of two tin cans and a piece of string? If we were lucky, we might even have a toy walkie-talkie to use to communicate with our friends. Of course it had to be just two people at a time. How times have changed.

I was looking through an electronics store’s weekly circular today and I didn’t even understand what half of the products were. First of all, did we ever have a store classified as “an electronics store in the 50s?” No. We might have a store that sold TVs and radios along with stoves and refrigerators; but usually these items were found in a department of a store like Sears. I’m not sure if Rockland has an “electronics” store today, but I’m sure that the latest electronic products are all available in nearby shopping areas.

I don’t know how the teenagers today keep up with the latest gadgets. They are never long-lasting. Next year you need a new one to be on top of your electronics game.  Why? I ask does a teenager have to be entertained every second of the day they’re not in school. This Best Buy circular I’m looking at right now has a 16GB iPod nano, a 32 GB IPod touch, and an 8GB Walkman MP3 Player. Does anyone know the difference between all these gadgets, what they do, and which one is the best to buy? I don’t.

When I was a teenager, I begged for a small turntable to play my 45s on. It was on a hinge and closed like a suitcase. Did you have one like that? I also had a small case that held about 20 or so 45s I could carry with me to my girlfriend’s house. The biggest innovation to come along in the late 50s and early 60s was the transistor radio or pocket radio as it was sometimes called. What a thrill it was to be able to carry your tunes around with you on one of those hand-held transistor radios. They were full of static as I remember, but at night time we could get the Boston radio stations just fine.

As far as telephones go, don’t even get me started. When the Summer Olympics came here to Atlanta in 1996, they ran a special feature on the local news about how one family kept track of each other amongst the huge crowds that were amassed downtown. You guessed it—cell phones. It was a new idea then. After the Olympics, everyone had to have one. A new age of communicating began. I remember reading somewhere at that time that eventually everyone would have their own personal phone number. Never, I thought. How is that possible? Well a short 14 years later here we are. Everyone is walking down the street with a phone to their ear or worse yet, while they’re driving.

I have never enjoyed talking on the phone for more than a few minutes at a time. I swore I would never get too attached to a cell phone. I drove back and forth to work at night for several years without the benefit of a cell phone in case I needed it in an emergency. Now I don’t feel safe going out of the house for a short errand without one. Why is that?

Still I never got into fancy phones or all the extra applications they had like cameras and the like. I was happy just being able to call someone if I needed to. I hardly used it otherwise—until I came up to Maine last summer. I had the need at that time to be connected to the internet while I was there. The cell phone store I use here convinced me that if I bought a $300 Blackberry phone, I could use it to connect to the internet up in Maine. I fell for it. Wrooooong.  It seems that the coast of Maine has several dead zones where it’s impossible to get cell phone service. Guess where one of these zones was—Spruce Head, where I stayed for the summer. I ended up having to purchase an internet service while I was there. Maine hasn’t quite caught up with all the latest electronic innovations yet. I suspect it has something to do with the idea that people don’t want an ugly communications tower in their backyard where it could despoil all the natural beauty Maine has to offer. Can’t say as I blame them, but that didn’t help me out much.

Don’t get me wrong. I love my Blackberry. It sure came in handy during our flood ordeal. I could look up phone numbers and locations we needed to get too, while we were actually on the road, by checking on my internet via the Blackberry. I have also enjoyed taking pictures with it and using the video application. I don’t have the “texting” feature because my arthritic hands can’t handle it. Besides, why?

In my old South End neighborhood when I was growing up we communicated just fine without all this folderol. If our mothers didn’t know where we were every second, they didn’t seem to worry much. There was always someone in the neighborhood looking out for us all. If we got into trouble when we were out running around town as teenagers, we could always find a pay phone nearby. We had more then. When is the last time you used one?

Mothers also used the kid messenger service. It went like this, “Go tell your sister to come home to dinner.” My brother would then run through the neighborhood until he found me and tell me to go home. Simple. We also had a mother in the neighborhood who used a cowbell to call her kids home. Not all of our homes had phones either. We had a “party line” which means it was used by more than one family. If someone was on the phone when you picked it up, you had to hang up and try later. It should have been called the “gossip line” I think, because many’s the time we were tempted to listen in on others’ conversations.

So our communications in the 40s and 50s consisted of the newspaper, which we actually bought and read then; the radio; the newsreels in the movie theaters; “party line” phones; and tellakid. We didn’t need an “electronics store” to keep us informed about the world around us. We didn’t need to be instantly connected to our world via the internet. I must admit though, I do enjoy keeping in touch with all of you via this blog on the internet.

However, too much information is not always a good thing. We of this age, (50 plus) can very easily suffer from an “information overload.” At such times I long to go back to two tin cans and a string. It would be so much simpler.

Thanks for listening.

SAVE THIS DATE: August 10, noon to whenever. Sandy Beach Park in the South End. Bring your picnic lunch and a chair and come and visit with me and your blogger friends. My 2009 Blog CD will be available for those who want one. See you there!  The CDs are now available. If you would like to purchase one before then, please email me at southendstories@aol.com for ordering information.