Conversations on the phone

A while back, I had a reality check. Here is what happened. I was teaching a group of new apprentice linemen on construction standards. (Don’t tune out yet while I talk "shop".) We were talking about joint use (communication lines attached to the power poles) and I made reference to “Ma Bell” every now and then. One of the apprentices raised his hand.

Yes.

Who is this "Ma Bell" that you keep referring to?

AT&T.

Oh, you mean the cellular phone company that got bought out by Cingular. (And has since been bought out and changed its name back to AT&T.)

No. This was before cell phones ever existed. You may know them by the “Baby Bell” name they used for their regional company: MST&T (Mountain States Telephone & Telegraph) or Mountain Bell. Blank stares from the class.

How about, US West? More blank stares. Qwest?

Finally, some nodding heads of recognition. Boy, did that make me feel old.

Has it really been that long ago since AT&T (Ma Bell) was broken up by Congress? 1984 — I guess so.

Now, I am really going to go back into ancient history. Before cellphones and all of its craziness, I can remember when Mountain Bell owned all of the phones in your house. You only rented them. When you signed up for service, you picked up how many phones and what style you wanted to rent. The rotary phones were the “plain Janes”, then came “Princess” phones, and then touch tone.




Utah County was divided into 3 calling areas — North Utah County (Lindon, Pleasant Grove, American Fork, & Lehi), Central (Orem & Provo) and Southern (Springville, Spanish Fork, & Payson, etc). You could call toll free within the calling area, but it was long distance to call to the other areas.

Back then, you referred to your phone number as Sunset 5-2622. You only had to dial the five numbers if you were calling within your toll free area i.e. 5-2622. The “Sunset” designated the number as being in Pleasant Grove/Lindon. Some of the other cities I remember were: “Franklin” for Provo, “Academy” for Orem, and “Skyline” for American Fork. If you wanted to dial to a long distance area within the county, then you had to dial the first two letters of the call zone + the 5 digits i.e. a call from Orem to Pleasant Grove would be SU5-2622 or 785-2622.

As I mentioned, it was long distance to call from Lindon to Orem/Provo. When I was growing up, we had 2 white phones hanging on the wall side by side in our kitchen. My father worked in Orem and we lived four blocks away in Lindon. As a condition of his employment, he had to live in Orem because he was on call 24/7 and they needed to get in touch with him on an Orem line. He countered with the option that if he had an Orem phone line then would that suffice? (I’m certain that there was much more to it than that, but I was young and don’t know the details.) Anyway, they okayed it and my dad paid to have a line installed the four blocks from the Orem border to our house. Thus, the two phones. The one on the right was the Pleasant Grove/Lindon line and the one on the left was the Orem/Provo line. Needless to say, it was the topic of conversation whenever someone came into our kitchen for the first time and saw two exact same phones hanging side by side on the wall.

Why do you have two phones?

Oh, that. “His” and “Hers” of course. One for my dad and one for my mom.

Next history lesson: The demise of the typewriter. (What's a typewriter?)