Back in My Day

The other day, on our way to the temple open house, Nicky and I had some pretty funny conversations. I had Nicky drive to the temple so he could get some more experience commuting on I-15. As I navigated from the passenger seat, he started asking how we ever knew where we were going before cell phones and GPS. 

First I explained MapQuest, but then I broke the news to him that MapQuest wasn't always “The Way.” We used to have to just know. Or ask for directions. Then I told him how when you needed the coordinates for a street with a name, you had to look it up in the phone book. 

Then he asked, "What's a phone book?"

I thought surely he knew what a phone book was! You don't have to walk among something to know what it is, in some cases. Right? Plus, he grew up around phone books. Mostly as something to sit on to get a haircut or eat dinner at grandma's house, but still!

So I explained how everyone's address and phone number was in the phone book unless you requested to be unlisted, and every year, an updated phone book would appear on the driveway. 

(I used to always look through the phone book as a boredom buster. I wouldn’t read a novel, but I would read the phone book. My formative years were intense).

Nicky was blown away! "So you could just look up anyone and know where they lived and what their phone number was?"

In hindsight, it does sound a little invasive. Then I remembered this... in high school we could buy a directory and have all the addresses and phone numbers of our classmates! So I shared this tid bit with Nicky (at my school, it was called the "Wolveringer”). He was, once again, completely shocked that this information was just handed out so freely! Was there no privacy? No protection?

(At this point I was thinking, "Wow! It really is kind of dangerous how we did that!" Then I remembered how our kids all share their locations on their cell phones and post everything online, and I was like, "Eh." Each generation has their thing).

Then Nicky had another question: How did it work when you had to call someone before cell phones? How would you call that person specifically?

So I had to act out the following:

Hello?

Hi, is Sam there?

Yes, hold on. I'll get him.

(Again, I feel like Nicky should know this because for the first several years of his life, this is what he was exposed to).

Nicky was floored! "So you would call someone's house, and anyone could answer, and you would just have to ask them to go get the person you wanted to talk to?"

“Yup.”

"Just like on TV?" he asked.

I'm not sure what phone calls he has seen on TV, but I'm curious why he thought this was just fictional before now!

Then he asked, "How did you save your contacts?" and I laughed at the modern vernacular. I told him about address books and planners and how we could write phone numbers in them, but most of the time we just memorized them. He can't even imagine having to do that. How can a brain retain such information? Clearly, we were numerical geniuses to host such a catalog in our mind palaces. Remember how you could even memorize the sound the different phone numbers made as you dialed? Kind of like a song or jingle? Beep, Beep, Boop, Beep, Beep, Beep, Boop (that's my childhood phone number from before we had to use area codes for local calls). Now the numbers are silent and oh, so boring, and a lot of people don’t know their own phone numbers, let alone anyone else’s.

(I still keep a few current phone number memorized for emergencies. It’s hard work on the modern-day brain, and yet, I can still recite at least 20 obsolete phone numbers from my childhood. You wanna go back to 1998 and call my friend Steve? 969-6060).

A few months ago, Scotty and I taught our kids about “long distance” calls. Even though I grew up with it, I sometimes forget that it used to be that way - that I couldn’t call my cousins without having to pay extra money, and they only lived half an hour away! Now I can call my husband when he’s in South America or just send him a quick text like it’s nothing!

It’s actually quite incredible (and terrifying) to consider how rapidly technology has grown during Nicky’s lifetime. The differences between what’s become available during his childhood compared to my childhood is much more vast than when you compare my childhood to my parents’ childhoods. Even the difference between what Nicky was born with and what Eva was born with (eight years) is a bit shocking.

I can’t wait til I get to tell my grandkids about how we used to have to walk and drive places because “back in my day” we couldn’t teleport.