We've had a cellphone since, oh, this is a very good guess, 1987/88. That would put as pretty close to the beginning. Our "cell" then wasn't small, convenient, nor easy to use. What we had was a bag phone, a sizable and clumsy affair that took up space, always need charging, and given the limited cellular signals at
the time, really was little more than a novelty.The phone you see here is a pretty good representation of what we did have back in the olden days.
Let's be fair about this. The technology, even in the mid and late 80s, was nothing short of incredible. I could take off for a day of fly fishing somewhere out in Columbia County, or down in Monroe or Carbon Counties, and give wifey a call once I was there, and once I was on the way home.
Sometimes.
Again, back to signal limitations.
See, there were more dead than live spots back then. This wasn't a NE PA shortcoming. Most of America, that is the America outside of major metro areas, was just starting to get cellular service. I do believe cell companies were selling cellphones to people who lived in places where they could never use them, except to look cool while faking a phone call.
Whatever the limitations, my memory of the following is solid. I didn't know how to answer a call on that bag phone should anyone call.
They never did.
There was a good reason. Neither Carol nor I knew with certainty what our cell number was. At some point, yes, I suppose we did write it down, and I suppose, it was on our monthly bill. About all I can figure is this - we used it so infrequently that we simply did not take it as serious means of serious communication.
Trading in the bag phone, we ended up with a phone not quite as bulky as this one, but it was a huge improvement over lugging and wrestling with a bag phone. Still, neither of us could ever remember the phone number. It had to be our lack of serious intent when it came to the cellphone.
Don't leave home without it? We more often than not left home without out. Somewhere back ten to twelve years ago, we lent the phone to family. They were traveling to New England and felt a little safer having a phone along. We were happy to oblige. They figured, if need be, we can call home. Sure, easily enough said.
Making that call home, should they find the nerve to attempt it, required a tedious process of punching in a series of different numbers, actually connecting with an operator, following that operator's instructions, then punching in more numbers. Put another way, there were a dozens hoops you needed to jump through to make a call to another state. Those hoops also carried an attendant price tag, which was somewhere around $10 a minute.
While they were in New England I tried calling them. The cellphone rang. And kept right on ringing - they never figured out how to answer it either.
The photo at left tells a story.
The event was Great Race V. The time would have been Spring/Summer 1985. This Great Race thing was an "-athalon" of some sort, whether bi, tri, or quad. A handful of us at WARM had put a team together to participate in two of the competitions; running and canoeing.
From left to right; me, Diane Wasta, Steve St. John, and the late Terry McNulty. Diane and Terry were runners. Steve and I weren't canoeists, but we dipped our paddles with exuberance nonetheless.
Seems I remember us coming in last. Dead last. The river was low. Steve and I carried the canoe more than we paddled it. There's a name for that; portaging. Embarrassing as it is, that's not the story the photo tells.
Behind us is the banner of the sponsor of Great Race V(was there a Great Race IV or VI?). That sponsor was CELLULAR ONE, a brand new cell phone company, proudly selling cell phones and service to the citizens of The Wyoming Valley, most of whom, and I'd bet a paycheck on this, had zero clue what in hell a cellular phone was. I sure didn't.
CELLULAR ONE is still out there. The Great Race, and this is just a guess, went away a long time ago. It was a benefit for The Environmental Council of NE PA, which pretty much faded into history an equally long time ago.
As a final note on the cell's turning 25, I'll confess to being unable to imagine life without one these days. Yes, I have memorized my number, and yes, I now know how to answer it.
