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August 8, 2024 12 mins
Old phones are popular with Gen Z
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Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Did you know land lines are cool again? According to
gen Z, they are confirming this. Just when you thought
rotary phones were a thing of the past. Uh, land
lines are trending on TikTok of all places. Not because
they're useful in emergencies, it goes on to say, but
as design elements, with most using them as decorations. There's

(00:26):
a guy that's listed on here as a phone collector,
and you know, I started thinking, man, you know, I
remember when call waiting came about and we ended up
getting it and you have to push the little the
little hang up, the little clicker, you have to push
that and let it up and then it would switch

(00:47):
to the other line. And I absolutely remember when that started,
and I was like, man, busy signals, they're no longer
a part of my life. No more busy signals kind
of a thing. Anyway, just made me think of that.
There's a guy named Andrew that's a phone collector, and
he says, you can connect landline phones to Wi Fi
using a modem.

Speaker 2 (01:09):
What are they doing? You can use it to actually
make a call.

Speaker 3 (01:14):
I just want rotary phones. Why can't I? I? So
you couldn't make a call.

Speaker 1 (01:18):
On a rotary phone right now if you had a
landline coming into your home shore, is that what you mean?

Speaker 2 (01:25):
Yeah? Why couldn't you? Why do I need a modem
and Wi Fi? Oh?

Speaker 1 (01:28):
Yeah, No, it says you can connect landline phones to
Wi Fi using a modem. I don't know if you
can use connect a landline.

Speaker 2 (01:37):
Phone to Wi Fi. How would you do that?

Speaker 1 (01:40):
How could you connect an actual landline phone or pie?

Speaker 2 (01:44):
I don't It's not something I have to worry about.

Speaker 1 (01:46):
Yeah, according to him, you have to use a modem
so you can make a call.

Speaker 2 (01:50):
I had. We had.

Speaker 3 (01:52):
I distinctly remember growing up this green Ohio bell phone
we had, and this thing weighed twenty pounds.

Speaker 2 (02:03):
I mean it was epic tabletop or mount on the wall.

Speaker 3 (02:06):
No, no, no, not mount on the wall, tabletop, we
had both, but yeah, yeah, and we.

Speaker 2 (02:13):
Had this green Ohio bell thing. And I to this.

Speaker 3 (02:17):
Day I would if I ever get a landline. I
swear I told you that this to my wife. I'm
gonna hunt down an old green rotary bell phone.

Speaker 2 (02:29):
Doesn't have to be Ohio Bell.

Speaker 3 (02:30):
It could be any of the bills, and I'm going
to plug it in and that's going to be our landline.

Speaker 1 (02:35):
The nostalgia is strong with this one. Oh my god,
I loved it. Well, think about how clear people sound
right then you go and then on the sixth number
you're like, oh.

Speaker 2 (02:49):
I've got a wrong one, wrong number. Now I gotta
start it, well, dude.

Speaker 3 (02:53):
And also what that did was it mentally prepared you
as you as you're dialing right, you know, and for
me growing up it was seven.

Speaker 2 (03:04):
Seven three.

Speaker 1 (03:07):
Yeah anyway, and you remember people's but yeah, well you
had to. But it must give you time in your
head to be like, please, I hope her dad doesn't answer.

Speaker 2 (03:17):
I hope her dad doesn't answer. I hope her dad
doesn't answer.

Speaker 3 (03:20):
Then he goes hello, and then you get the hello,
and you're like, on the other end outside, that's Jessica there. Yeah,
may I please high stir? May I please speak to whoever?

Speaker 2 (03:31):
She's not available right now? Okay? Can I leave a message? No?

Speaker 3 (03:35):
I never had a dad get crummy with me, right,
but I definitely could tell he was.

Speaker 2 (03:43):
They weren't happy, like it's just like you should you
give you this number?

Speaker 3 (03:48):
You could just hear like the life kind of draining
from his voice. Yeah, I'll go get her because his
baby girl's talking to some schmuck on the other end
of this phone.

Speaker 2 (04:00):
Like how people would cover over it.

Speaker 1 (04:02):
You'd hear like what they'd like, cover over the receiver,
but their fingers wouldn't be together. They would be open
and they would scream to get here whatever, and it
would come through like, I'm like, what did you.

Speaker 2 (04:14):
Cover it for?

Speaker 1 (04:15):
Your fingers are spread apart, Like you're not You're not
muting anything, do you?

Speaker 3 (04:22):
Uh, I'll tell you. I'll tell you another phone. I
remember we got a ton of people on hold. By
the way, I can't talk, but go ahead.

Speaker 2 (04:31):
Do you remember when Sports Illustrated.

Speaker 3 (04:34):
If you got you you got a subscription to Sports Illustrated.

Speaker 2 (04:39):
They had a shoe phone.

Speaker 1 (04:40):
Yet, yes, I had a football one too. There was
a football Sports Illustrated Football for the football one. It
sounded like crap, by the way I had the shoe one.

Speaker 2 (04:49):
If it would always sound like it was. It was
so cheap.

Speaker 3 (04:55):
If someone was it was so cheap, you didn't even
have to pick it up, if you just were near it.
If someone was on the line in another room on
a different phone, you could hear their conversation because it
was just and you didn't even like pick it up.

Speaker 2 (05:12):
You didn't even pick up the shoe.

Speaker 3 (05:13):
It was just coming out like it was some sort
of antenna.

Speaker 1 (05:16):
Remembery in coming to America, they had the like the
cheeseburger phone that was in the officer phone.

Speaker 2 (05:22):
Yeah, I think McDonald's.

Speaker 1 (05:24):
You could get like a cheat, Yeah, all the different
I dated a girl that had the lips, like the
big lips phone and the top lip is the one
that you know, pick it.

Speaker 2 (05:33):
Up a clear phone when it came out.

Speaker 3 (05:35):
Yeah, and you could see all that, and you're like,
it's kind of like how all the internal operations worked
and stuff.

Speaker 2 (05:42):
Cool. So great, father Michael, welcome to the show.

Speaker 4 (05:45):
Hey, thank you. A very timely story that goes right
in with this. Years ago in eighty seven eighty eight,
I was working for Shedding your Funeral Home, going out
doing pre ne neat arrangements for folks. I was on
a call on a Friday night to a home in
Upper Arlington and the woman's husband had just been put
into a nursing home, had maybe three months to live,

(06:07):
and she started telling me how he had been a
thirty plus year employee out of the old Bell Labs
building over on East Broad across from Mount Carmel and
he had invented an invention there in the basement of
his Upper Arlington home. I said, oh, really, she brought
the invention up. She showed me. She said, we worked
on this for years upstairs, downstairs, and he finally brought

(06:28):
it in. It revolutionized the entire world. And he never
got a penny or even a thank you for it.
All right, So the weekend goes by, Monday comes around,
Paul Harvey News coming on the am radio at noon.
I'm listening Paul Harvey News obituaries Columbus, Ohio. I said,
oh my gosh, turn the radio up. The fellow had

(06:51):
passed away over the weekend, and Paul Harvey finally gave
the proper tribute to this gentleman, the inventor of the touchtne.

Speaker 1 (07:01):
Whoa Well, he actually invented it, actually invented it in
the basement of his Upper Arlington home.

Speaker 2 (07:09):
I had no idea that it was invented here.

Speaker 3 (07:12):
You remember when you made a call, like to an
office or something like that, and they go, if you're
calling from a touch tone phone like back, because they
had to distinguish It's like okay, press one. If not,
please stay on the line. I clearly remember those back
thy yeah, because it was a mismatch. As far as

(07:32):
people that were utilizing that touch tone phone technology, then
it was only partial. It was only part of the
people who had phones, so they had to leave, they
had to you know, give you a yeah.

Speaker 2 (07:45):
So cool. Yeah, that is.

Speaker 4 (07:48):
I just think we touch tone at every every time
we go to the gas station. We use that touchstone
technology everywhere.

Speaker 2 (07:56):
You know the rest of the story.

Speaker 4 (08:00):
We're glad I could share it.

Speaker 2 (08:01):
With you, guys.

Speaker 4 (08:01):
Thanks God, you do.

Speaker 2 (08:02):
Thanks Father Michael. Appreciate that. God. Love it when you
have a father, listen to it. Love it. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (08:08):
You know, he did the invocation for Trump when he
came to Columbus back in twenty sixteen. Father Michael was
the guy who did the invocation for Donald Trump.

Speaker 2 (08:16):
That's awesome. Hey, Joe, welcome in.

Speaker 5 (08:20):
Hey.

Speaker 6 (08:20):
I got a quick story on old fashioned phones for you.
My nephew was born with I'm gonna call it a
mild case of cerebral policy. So basically, the left side
of the body and the right side of the body
aren't as strong as and mobile as they should be.
So we were having discussion for Christmas, how do we

(08:42):
teach the kid to use the left side of it,
or his left hand as much as he needs to.

Speaker 2 (08:47):
And he's maybe five years old time.

Speaker 6 (08:50):
And he was wanting to play with the cell phones
all the time. So I made a call to a
friend of mine. He collects junk and he had an
old rotary phone there for us. So he opens up
for Christmas the old fashioned phone. A couple of years ago.
It plugged into the outlet, so we unplugged the work phone,
gave him that one. And the look of contempt on

(09:13):
this kid's face that wasn't a cell phone. That he
had used both hands, one hand to hold the receiver
in one hand to physically dial it. And you can
see in his eyes. You need to see him saying
he's son of As soon as he opened the gift,
he knew it was he knew it was up.

Speaker 1 (09:32):
That's funny, man, That is hilarious. Thanks man, thank you,
and hey, Doug, welcome to the show.

Speaker 2 (09:37):
What you got, bro?

Speaker 5 (09:40):
I just not a sad thing. My father in law
died and uh, we cleaned out of his house and
there's a red rotary phone with a red button on. Yeah,
I still got it down by my It's down by
my train.

Speaker 2 (09:57):
That was the phone that my grandmother told me.

Speaker 3 (10:02):
She goes the president has a special red phone with
a red button on it, and my god, you actually
have that phone, that phone she told She used to
say Ronald Reagan had a red phone he kept on
his desk case he needed to get a hold of
the military role fas.

Speaker 1 (10:19):
Missioner Gordon did too, Remember, I mean Batman he used
to use, Yeah, to get a hold of Batman.

Speaker 5 (10:25):
We Uh, I got the phone and at works. If
you had a jack that hooked up, you could plug
it in and it might not you know, push push
one for whatever, but I can call out. I called
my brother on it when I got it. But yeah,
that's yeah, a dial out.

Speaker 2 (10:44):
Thing whatever leadline. Yeah, yeah, yeah, you know what I'm saying. Yeah, absolutely, Doug,
thanks brother, that's awesome. Man, whatever.

Speaker 3 (10:52):
Unscrew the ear receiver and the talk receiver. Kind of
play with that stuff inside. Yeah, I can remember, I can.
Oh my god, how is it that these things we
haven't experienced in thirty five years, But it's it's like
it's fresh in your brain as it was yesterday.

Speaker 2 (11:12):
Didn't that fun?

Speaker 4 (11:13):
Uh?

Speaker 1 (11:13):
It's kind of to put a bow on this because
I brought up, you know, landlines, the gen Z confirming
landlines are cool again some of these TikTok users. One
of them shares her joy over a new baby pink
corded phone from Amazon. It doesn't work. She just mounted
it on the wall for a decorative piece. So it's
just on the wall wherever she lives. It's just hanging

(11:36):
there like it is operable, but it's not.

Speaker 2 (11:38):
It's just the wall.

Speaker 3 (11:41):
Rotary phones were kind of tricky because depending on how
tall you were as a kid you had, it was
a real dickens to try to reach up there.

Speaker 1 (11:51):
I can't reach the two. Also, there's one that on
this in this article. It's a Garfield phone. The eyes
open when the receivers.

Speaker 2 (12:00):
Remember those neither one of them worked.

Speaker 1 (12:02):
But these people are like, who we got landline phones.
They don't work, but we got them. They're decorating with them.

Speaker 2 (12:07):
That's the first wholesome gen Z thing I've read in
a while.

Speaker 1 (12:10):
Driving in weather together from day and night heating and
cooling problems
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