– elderly folks bemoan the struggle of making a call in the past

THE OLDER folks might often tell their grandchildren or even children, “Y’all get things easy.”

But indeed, the youngsters of today do not truly know and appreciate the value of what they have access to.
So in order to touch the tip of the iceberg as to how fortunate the youths of today really are, an elderly woman, Ann, sought to explain the struggle of walking miles, not to get food or water but to make a call to a loved one abroad or even locally.

“Back in my days I would have to walk or sometimes ride my bicycle from Vreed-en-hoop where I live to my friend’s house at Houston just to get a call,” said Ann.
Just to hear the voice of a brother, sister, mother or father, a person in the early 1950- 1990’s would have to walk or travel miles just to have a few minutes on a phone owned by a total stranger in some cases.

“Don’t believe that the minutes came free, we had to pay lots of money to make a call and much less if it was to an overseas number. Oh gosh, you would have to spend the little’ ravelings’ you saved up for weeks,” said the elderly woman.
Some persons who had a neighbour with a phone were fortunate, because in most cases the neighbour would not have to attach a price for the use of the phone.
The possibility of a neighbour actually having a phone was limited because in those by-gone days, only a few were privileged to have such a luxury. And as explained by Ann, in most cases it was only the “rich” ones who had that privilege.

However, the frustration of having to come home to a long line of persons on your stairway was unbearable at times, said one individual who was one of the fortunate ones.
He explained that most afternoon he would come home from work and have to ‘worm’ his way past the horde of people, most of whom he did not know. So in order to regulate the system and “free up” his stairway, his family decided that persons were only allowed to receive calls on Sunday at his home.

But seeing the happiness in the eyes and on the faces of those who were actually speaking to a loved one (who in some cases they had not heard from in years), was like watching a youngster enjoying a lick of ice cream, said the septuagenarian .
“Seeing their happiness while talking to a loved one after years was priceless but do not go thinking for a second that the signal was of high quality and the phones were fancy. We had to settle for what was called rotary dial phones,” said the man.

According to Google, a rotary dial is a component of a telephone or a telephone switchboard that implements a signaling technology in telecommunications known as pulse dialing. It is used when initiating a telephone call to transmit the destination telephone number to a telephone exchange.
On the rotary dial, the digits are arranged in a circular layout so that a finger wheel may be rotated with one finger from the position of each digit to a fixed stop position, implemented by the finger stop, which is a mechanical barrier to prevent further rotation.

Today, the sight of one of those phones in a home or office is rare because the technology of today has shunned those of the’ long ago’ days to some extent.
Persons, now have access to smart phones and other devices which give them the opportunity to download apps such as Facebook or Whatsapp that include the option of making or receiving local or even international calls and even video calls for free.
Apart from that, local telecommunication service providers have been working to make cellular and landline phones affordable for every individual.