What is a telephone?

We were looking through the picture book when we saw a picture of a phone

“What is that ? ” the little one said,

” A telephone,” replied I, patting his head.

“And what is that?” he asked again

“To help you talk to someone else.”

“But what about the screen? ” he said

“And how do you punch the numbers?

“And why do you have this wire and a tire with holes in the middle?”

I wondered about what he said and thought it

Strange that in just a generation, what we considered magical is now out dated.

No cross connections, or telephone operators

No phone directories and no broken wires.

No plugged in phones, one per family

Sitting proudly perched in common space

For all to hear your conversations.

There was a time these phones were rare,

(I grew up in a phone-less home)

And there was a phone call etiquette

We were told to
” Call only between 8 and 8, in day light hours,

And not too late at night.”

Weekend calls were frowned upon

As were long, conversations of meaningless chatter.

 

These phones are long gone and  replaced

By beauties that are sleek and smart.

More than just a simple phone.

They are small and cute hand held ones that go with you,

Like a shadow, stuck with glue.

These messengers who  receive mails, take photographs

and send them too!

They sing to you , and talk to you

Keep appointments and shop for you

Allow entry into concert halls , let you board international aeroplanes too!

 

No wonder then you look for it ,

From time to time and feel it like a touchstone

Reassured, that at any time

You are just a phone call away.

[ctt title=”Who knows? One day my great grandchildren will look at smart phones and wonder what they are.” tweet=”Who knows, one day my great grandchildren will look at smart phones and wonder what they are.” coverup=”spa9m”]

 

 

This photo prompt on #Friday Reflections reminded me of an earlier time when telephones were quite rare. Feel free to join this weekly blog hop  and share your thoughts with other bloggers.