Dial telephones and memories for sale

   Debbie found an old dial telephone on a Facebook for sale site the other day. The seller said it was her grandparents. She was asking $25.
   I thought about buying it for memories, but it sold quickly. I bet it still works.
Seeing the old telephone brought back lots of childhood memories.
   I can still see my mom on the kitchen telephone visiting with a church friend or calling a family member. An iron skillet of fried potatoes sizzling on the stove while Mom chatted away and Dad piddled around in the yard.
   Outside of talking in person or stopping to visit, that was the only form a communication we had back in the day.
   Mom kept an address/telephone book in the drawer next to the phone. There were sticky notes and pieces of paper with phone numbers scribbled on them stuck around the edge of the beige-colored telephone.
   The textbook thick Tulsa phone book was in a nearby kitchen cabinet. The Yellow Pages were as thick as a Sears and Roebuck Catalog.
   Some years later, I added a second line in my bedroom. My phone had a long cord that stretched to the bathroom. You never knew when a friend might call while in a business meeting.
   I sort of remember when bag phones came out, but never had one.
  In the 1980s, when I worked for the circulation department for the Tulsa World and Tulsa Tribune newspapers, I carried a beeper.
  What an ancient and cumbersome form of communication. While out checking my carrier newspaper routes, I would be beeped from the circulation desk to deliver a missed newspaper or some other business. I had to stop and use a pay phone or drive back to the zone office and call the desk.
    You don’t see too many pay phones these days. Those things were germ magnets multiplied.
I didn’t get my first cell phone until about 2003. I declined getting one for a few years and finally gave in. Nowadays, like most, my phone seems glued to my hands.
   I don’t play games, outside of solitaire, but I do spend good amount of time on Facebook sharing daily funnies and posting photos of family, friends and other tidbits of news. I enjoy Facebook outside of the Facebook Police censoring our First Amendment rights.
   I don’t know about you, but sometimes I wish we could leave our cell phones at home and get back to visiting with our family, friends and neighbors in person.
   My dad loved to visit. I always enjoyed going with him to his old stomping grounds in the Verdigris River Bottoms and Oak Grove neighborhood east of Tulsa. He didn’t call or plan ahead. I’d drive and he’d tell me where to stop as he relived his boyhood memories.
   We were always welcomed inside where we were offered a meal or glass of iced tea.
   I usually found a chair in the living room and would soon fall asleep while my dad caught up on old times.
   He’d wake me and off we would go to another neighbor or friend, while he shared memories along the way.
   I’m thankful for my life journey, but I do miss the good old days of visiting and catching up with friends and family on the phone and in person. No holiday, special occasion or appointment required, the door was always open and the tea was brewing on the stove.
   Have a great week and always remember that “Good Things are Happening,” every day and always.