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For 10 cents, I could call home from a public pay phone or phone booth. Then the price rose to 25 cents. Absurd, I thought as a grade schooler and later as a teen. I'm not sure if pay phones even exist anymore, let alone those glass enclosed phone booths with the folding door.
When I was in grade school, I would take shelter in the phone booth that was located on National Road in front of the Hundley Ford car dealership. The phone booth provided some escape from the rain or snow as I waited for the public transit bus after attending a Girl Scout meeting at school.
There was no use spending a dime to call home for a ride because we only had one car in the family, and it was most likely being used for taking my brothers to football practice or some such thing. That phone booth also offered me a sense of security when it was getting dark and I was the only one waiting at the bus stop.
I much preferred to save my dimes and quarters for a stop at Jake's Toy Store or Colonel's soda/pharmacy, both located on Edgington Lane. When I didn't have any after school programs, I walked home with my siblings. And when finances allowed, we stopped in those favorite stores.
Today, you don't see many kids walking home from school or looking for a pay phone. We have come a long way in the world of communications. According to J.D. Power research, Americans pay an average of $141 per month for phone service. That figure most assuredly changes with the addition of more phones and phone service for families.
Very few households still have landline phones attached to walls or sitting on side tables. Rather, the modern family and individuals are owners of countless cellphones. And those cellphones don't come cheap. Surveys suggest a reliable cellphone can cost between $250 and $800. The smartphones can run you a thousand dollars or more.
It took me some time to give up the landline phones in lieu of the modern, in-my-pocket cellphone. First, it was the tiny flip phone that offered little more than phone calls and tedious texting. Then the smartphones appeared to be the best way to go with their fancy cameras, Internet and text messaging. Let's face it, once you have turned the page to these phones, there is no looking back.
However, I never had to worry about losing my rotary phone or the push-button princess phone attached to the kitchen wall. Our home phone number was a mere seven digits while cellphones require 10 digits. I'll bet members of the older generation can remember their childhood phone number even if they can't remember where they left their cellphones this morning.
Don't get me wrong. I am happy with all the features we have at the touch of a button. Sometimes I just wish I could hop onto my childhood wall phone and listen in on the party line. Now that was fun. Almost as fun as seeing how many people we could get in a phone booth.
Heather Ziegler can be reached at hziegler@theintelligencer.net.