Rotary Phone

Eli and Emma are staying with me this week , because their Nana went on vacation. Emma needed to call her Mom today, so I asked her if she wanted to use the phone in the hall, she said sure. She looked at the phone then at me, confused. She had never used a rotary dial phone. Now I feel old.

Emma " What do I do?"

Me " Put your finger in the hole of the first #"

Emma puts her finger in the hole and looks at me, like it didn't do anything.

Me " Pull it around to where it stops"

Emma " OK"

She does it with the first # then looks at me again, next #. Ok she has it. It took her a long time to dial the #. She was so excited. When she got off the phone she said " It hurt my fingers." Next phone call Eli had a turn at the old phone. It was fun. I had not realized how long it had been since rotary dial phones, how time flies. This phone belonged to my Grandma, she was still using it when she passed away 8 yrs. ago. When I was about Emmas age I was spending the night with my Grandma and wanted to call home. Well at that time she was still using the old wood phones that hung on the wall and you cranked the handle on the side to get the operator. I remember using that phone and thinking how old fashioned it was, I'm sure Emma had the same thoughts. My Grandma used that old wood phone until the phone service would no longer work with it. Then she got this rotary dial phone. In her last years her eyesight got very bad. My uncle bought her a push button phone with very large numbers, and you could put numbers in the memory and it had speed dial. He set it up for her, showed her how it worked had her use it several times . She said it was a wonderful phone. As my uncle was pulling out of her driveway on his way back to MO. she was putting the phone back in it's box, where it stayed.