Rotary Phone Calls

I have a fuzzy memory of frantically dialing my boyfriend's phone number to return his long-awaited phone call. Long after most families had a push-button phone, my parents retained the rotary phones, one desk type and one on the wall.

We have a phone very similar to this one in the hall of our home, just in case. Occasionally, we'll pick it up to answer the phone, but as it is corded, I only made a call from it once when the power was out. The other day, however, my daughters and I were upstairs when my eldest decided that she should make a phone call. I told her to go ahead and continued to bathe the little one. A couple minutes later, my nine-year old returned to asked me how to make the phone call. It took me a second to remember that while we routinely talk about dialing the phone, we rarely actually do it anymore! I tried to give her a quick lesson in the art of rotary phone use from the bathroom, but soon realized that she needed hands-on instruction.

I sometimes think about the obsolescence of things like record albums or b&w televisions, but I hadn't yet mused about the passing of the rotary phone!