When our kids were little, the telephone company had a
monopoly, similar to the utility companies of today. AT&T owned the telephone equipment
manufacturer, too (Western Electric). If
you needed a telephone, you bought it through the phone company, selecting from
the choices they gave you, and paying the price they said. When you moved, I think you had to give the
equipment back. Young people forming new
households, and anyone with shaky credit were required to pay a significant
deposit, refundable or transferrable when you moved. Sandy and I remember the rotary phone and the
introduction of the push button phones.
It took a long time to dial on a rotary phone, and if you didn’t take
your finger out cleanly on each dial, you could get a wrong number or have to
start over again.
Once the federal government broke up the AT&T
monopoly and forced them to sell off Western Electric, advances in telephone
hardware and service took off. We
watched the evolution of services such as redial, speed dial, recording a
greeting, saving messages, digital displays, caller ID, and then of course
wireless and competing plans, etc. I mentioned that I lived alone in the
apartment in South San Francisco for a few weeks before our October 9, 1966
wedding. One morning when I had just
fallen asleep after the “graveyard” shift at work, the phone rang. Besides no “caller ID” or voice mail in those
days, you couldn’t set the ringer to a silence mode. The phone would just keep ringing and ringing
until the caller finally gave up and hung up, or the recipient gave up and
picked up. I’m not sure it was even a
good idea to disconnect the phone. They
were not modular, and the way the phone company made them and connected them,
you couldn’t disconnect them from the wall, and the attachment at the phone
base was not designed for easy disconnect.
A spiteful caller could actually set his handset down – not hang up –
and your phone would ring “until the cows came home” if you didn’t pick it up.
I picked up the phone out of a sound sleep and heard that
it was the local blood bank calling; that they had an emergency situation and
were desperate for blood donations.
Well, I threw some clothes on and hurried over to the location they gave
me, wanting to be a good citizen and help out in this “emergency
situation.” While giving blood, I asked
about the “emergency” and drew a puzzled look.
The worker there said that there was no emergency that they were aware of. She said that they are always in need of
donors, and had a group of volunteers who make phone calls on an ongoing
basis. Boy, did I feel stupid.
To this day I don’t know whether the caller tricked me,
or whether I was in a fuzzy, partially-awake stupor and misunderstood what I
was hearing. I guess I just didn’t
figure that the local blood bank would cold call people to come give blood for
no special reason. I later asked Sandy
about it, and she was sure I had just misunderstood. I was known to be sort of “out of it” when I
first woke up (still am). More than once
back in those days I answered the phone when half asleep. I would think I was awake enough and would
try to speak clearly: “Hello?” and I would hear, “Oh, I’m sorry; did I wake you
up?” and I would wonder how in the world they knew I had just woken up. Sandy or one of my friends told me that what
I thought was a bright and clear “Hello” actually sounded more like a confused
bear growling. Huh.
I had a client in
the telecommunications business who liked to compare the progress and
innovations in telecommunications under the free enterprise system with the
lack thereof in the quasi-public postal service (the U.S Post Office). As I write, the Post Office is losing
billions of dollars per year, pleading for increases in postage stamps and
other postal rates, and trying to figure out how to remain relevant to their
customers. It really helps us appreciate
the magic of the free enterprise system.
I notice, too, that private sector companies like FedEx and UPS are able
to charge reasonable prices yet remain profitable and stay in business. It is no doubt the cost structure. A private sector company will keep its costs
under control in order to make a profit, while a quasi-governmental
organization that has been in existence for many decades becomes increasingly
bloated. When the business model
changes, the organization cannot, or will not change in order to remain viable.
I’ll just mention here in passing that the ZIP code
system only came to be in 1962. I heard
about it while stationed in Germany. I
think that is when we were assigned an APO # - Army or Armed Forces PO #. Typical of me, I lamented the ZIP code system
as yet another thing for people to remember, and another way to make a mistake
and send a letter to the wrong place. I
was told that if you put down the wrong ZIP code, “they will figure it
out.” And I thought: if they can figure
it out, then they don’t need the ZIP code in the first place. (A real
progressive visionary I am!). Here’s
another subtle change: When you see those large orange, diamond-shaped signs on
the road that say, WORK ZONE AHEAD, be aware that the used to say MEN
WORKING. I’m sure you can guess why the
change was needed. Also, FLAGMAN ahead
is now FLAGGER ahead.
When I first heard that the price of gasoline in Germany,
which was sold by some strange quantity called the liter, came to about one
U.S. dollar per gallon, I could scarcely believe it. We were paying around 25 cents per gallon
when I left the U.S. and for some time after I got back. I remember thinking that if gas cost $1.00
per gallon in the U.S., with our thousands of miles of open roads and our
dependence on commuting and trucking, the whole economy would collapse. People wouldn’t be able to get to work; they
would stop operating motor vehicles.
Trucking companies would go out of business; the automobile industry
would collapse, etc.
Eventually the price of gas did reach $1 per gallon, and
we were all in shock. I remember in the
mid-to-late 1970s when a news analyst remarked that it was as if during the night
someone went around and turn the signs upside down at all the gas stations (It
was done manually back then), so that prices went from the 60s to the 90s
(cents per gallon). Since then we have
watched the price of gas drift slowly, but inexorably up past $2, $3 and $4 per
gallon. They have currently drifted down
toward $3.50, but not before we were hearing that prices could be headed toward
$5 and $6 per gallon in the not too distant future. So we are not counting on a continued
decline, or even stabilization at less than $4.
When I read about the record quarterly revenues and profits of the major
oil companies, I wonder out loud, “Where is the outrage?” I don’t see any consumer groups or lobbyist
or politicians saying much about it. Oh,
well. But the free enterprise system is
busy coming out with hybrid and all-electric cars. What a great system!
My upbringing on Long Island was so different from
Sandy’s upbringing in California. First
of all, I had no sisters, and Mom was not in a position to teach us about
consumerism, either directly or by example.
When we were planning our marriage, all I knew about it were from
wedding receptions. I had no idea what
was involved. I hadn’t heard of creating
a gift registry or planning where some of the household necessities were going
to come from. I remember we went to a
department store looking for what Sandy said would be our “every day
dishes.” I had never heard of the term or
of the concept. We found a set that we
both liked, but she said they were too expensive to be every day dishes, so I
helpfully suggested that we could use them every other day. She thought I was just trying to be
funny. She didn’t know that I was really
saying that I had never heard of something as stupid as dishes that were too
good to use every day.
Little did I know that when important company came to
visit, we couldn’t use the same dishes that we used every day!
In all fairness, we didn’t do much socializing during my
growing up years, and I was off to the Army at age 17, so my social skills and
maturity level along these lines was rather stunted. I still struggle sometimes
with terms that, in my mind, are sort of interchangeable. I often use the more general term “window
treatment” because the correct choice among “shade”, “curtain,” “drapes” and
“blinds” is not coming to mind. We also
have “area rugs,” “throw rugs,” “cloth,” “towels,” “carpets,” etc, and it takes
me awhile to remember which term applies in a particular case. Then there is the sliding glass door: “window,”
“door,” “slider,” “screen,” “opening,” etc.
Don’t get me started on “pants,” “slacks,” “jeans,” “trousers,” etc. It
ain’t easy being me!
I remember the
first time I learned that a woman could not wear the same outfit more than once
if we were going to see some of the same people for a second time. I would never in a million years have figured
that out. I told her it would be cheaper
to get new friends than to buy a new outfit every time we went somewhere. Again, I think she thought I was just kidding. Fortunately, I am not one to insist on other
people seeing things my way. In moving
to California, marrying a California girl, and making our home in California,
my attitude was that I was the
outsider; I needed to adapt and
change, not the people around me. If I
did not accept the life style in California, I could and should go back to
where I came from. To this day, for
example, when speaking to my grandkids in Canada, I say “Grade 5,” while here
in California we say “5th Grade.”
I only recently became aware that using the word ‘soda’ instead of ‘pop’
is a sure tip off that I am from the states, so I will work on that one.
Similarly, my east coast relatives call scholastic
measurements “marks,” while in California we call them “grades.” Come to think of it, in Canada the kids get
“acceptable” or “proficient” or ”mastery” - and “acceptable” is not really
acceptable. It is not too much trouble
for me to remember to use the terms that sound more familiar to my
listeners. Sandy sometimes prepares Canadian
bacon, and Brianna recently asked, “What do they call it in Canada, American
bacon, or what?” It is good that she
wants to know. I have wished for years
that I could speak Spanish, but have been too lazy to focus and learn. When speaking to someone from Mexico who’s
English is very limited, I still use English rather than the few words I know
in Spanish, because I figure that the few words I know in Spanish are the same
few words they know in English, such as “hello” and “thank you”.
I do draw the line on trying to mimic accents. I have never appreciated the New York
accents, which include the Long Island accent, Bronx, Brooklyn and New Jersey
(which I know is not in New York, but is a distinctive accent). Even in high school I would pronounce the ‘R’
where it was and drop it from where it wasn’t.
For example, the word water:
New Yorkers drop the ‘R’ at the end and place it after the ‘A’ so that it
sounds more like it is spelled warduh. Teacher
becomes teachuh. Even while growing up in New York, surrounded
by people who talk that way, it always sounded foreign and ignorant to me. In a
recent visit to Long Island I got a kick out of hearing the word ‘yogurt’
pronounced as yogit, and ‘arthritis’
pronounced as if it starts with the word author: authoritis. And this one -
due more to education, I guess, than accent: To curve one’s appetite, instead of to curb one’s appetite. But I
confess that Sandy mixes up ‘slack’ and ‘flack’, usually talking about someone
giving someone ‘slack’ when she means ‘flack’.
She just can’t remember which word to use. Mom once said, “You Californians – you think
you’re the only ones who have no accent.”
I confess I have never heard a California accent, but we do ask people,
“Where are you from, originally?” when someone sounds “different.” Invariably, the person did not grow up in
California
I also confess that when Sandy pointed out that apricot, for example, is pronounced with
a long ‘A’, not the short ‘A’ that I was using, I did change. Also, I thought the state of Nevada was
pronounced as if spelled Nevahda,
because that was how I learned to pronounce it in New York. There are a few pronunciations that I refuse
to go along with on principle.
Californians seem to try to make one syllable words out of orange and mirror, for example. No
way. In the early years with Sandy, she
would wince at my use of words like ‘stoop’ for the front steps, ‘leggings’ for
tights and ‘sneakers’ for tennis shoes or runners. All three are fairly commonplace in
California now. I used to snicker that
tennis shoes were not worn by people who played tennis and runners were not
worn by runners. But then again, what
were we sneaking up on or away from in our sneakers? In California, what we referred to in school
as ‘gym’ is strictly called ‘P.E.’ for physical education. But the term gym is widely used here, as it
is on the east coast, to refer to adult exercise facilities, like the YMCA, to
which Sandy and I belong. I know one
guy, born and raised in the San Jose area, who calls the gym the ‘spa’ for some
reason. Maybe he got it from his wife,
who was not raised in this area.
Sandy’s Dad, Bob Moulton, and his generation used words
that have since fallen out of favor. For
25 cents, he said, “two bits.” I never
asked, and he probably wouldn’t have known, but how can two of anything total
25 cents? He referred to female dogs as
“bitches.” By the time our generation
came along that word was only used as a swear word and an insult. Old timers also like to say, “I don’t rightly
know.” I think what they mean is “I
don’t know what the right answer is.”
There used to be a little dittie that went: “Shave and a haircut: 2
bits,” the point here being that men routinely got shaves at the barber
shop. Today, if a barber were asked to
do a shave, he would probably get all nervous, need to look around for his
equipment, and cut the customer with his shaky hand. But “back in the day” good shaving equipment
was too expensive for the average person to buy and keep at home.
That is part of a trend where industrial grade appliances
and gadgets that were once found only in stores or restaurants are now common
in average people’s homes. Electric
curling irons, toaster ovens, latte makers, outdoor patio heaters and pizza
ovens, the huge stainless steel refrigerators, even the huge flat screen TVs:
People saw these in commercial operation and over time they made their way into
our homes. My point to the younger folks
is that the things you may have grown up with in your homes and taken for
granted as rather standard, were pretty much out of the question for middle
class families just a couple of generations ago.
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