Tag: technology

The Night the World Turned Color

Brenda Stratton

One afternoon when we came home from school, Mom told us that Nellie Briggs, our landlady who lived next door, had invited us over to watch Bonanza the following Saturday night. 

She had just purchased a new color television. 

Bonanza was one of our favorite TV shows, and we knew that it was now broadcast in color. It was hard to imagine since we were used to seeing it and all other television shows in multiple shades of gray.

I was so excited! I could hardly wait for Saturday night to come around. 

When the time came, we walked across the two connected yards between our homes. We stepped up onto her front porch and knocked. Nellie welcomed us and ushered us into her living room. 

And there it was. The television was larger than ours. The screen was set behind a thick glass front with rounded corners.

Mom and Dad exchanged pleasantries with her, while Monty and I sat quietly in our chairs, anxiously waiting for the show to begin. 

Finally, it came on—and I was instantly mesmerized. 

It was almost like walking into a magical world, color replacing the tones of gray that I was used to. I couldn’t take my eyes off of it.

After the show ended, we sat in silence for a few moments, and then the adults started discussing the program.

I was so enchanted by the colors that I barely remembered what the show was about. 

Soon, it was time to go home again. My parents said their goodbyes and thanked Nellie for inviting us over. 

We walked home, but I barely remember anything that came later. All I could think about was the color. 

It would be another fifteen years before I would have a color television of my own, but I never forgot that night at Nellie’s and how special it was to me. 

By today’s standards, the color probably wouldn’t seem remarkable. But to a little girl who had only known black-and-white television, it felt magical.

Two Longs and a Short

Brenda Stratton

Party lines were a fact in the 1950s, and many rural areas didn’t convert to private lines until much later — around 1990. 

We didn’t have phone numbers in those days. We had rings. Ours was two longs and a short. 

Whenever the phone rang, everyone in the household listened carefully to see if the call was for us. When the phone rang at our house, it also rang in every other house on the party line. 

Sometimes it was hard to tell who the call was for. If you were just coming in from outdoors or another part of the house, you might not hear the entire ring.

Mom taught me the difference between our ring and those of our neighbors. I appointed myself the household sentinel to announce to the house in general — and Mom in particular — if it was indeed two longs and a short. 

The polite thing to do when answering the phone was to pick the receiver up and listen carefully for a moment to see if anyone else was already talking, then hang up if the call wasn’t for you. 

Not everyone was polite enough to follow this protocol. Some people would stay on the line and listen, a practice often referred to as rubbering. The people the call was for could usually tell someone was listening in, but only had suspicions as to who it might be. 

I wasn’t allowed to use the phone in those days — yet somehow, that old black box still found its way into my childhood.

It was a heavy, black desk telephone — the kind that seemed as solid as a small piece of furniture. A sturdy black base anchored it in place, and the handset rested across the top in a simple, unpretentious cradle. In the center sat the familiar rotary dial, its round finger holes lined with numbers that circled back toward you as you released them.

There was nothing delicate about it. The phone felt permanent, rooted to its spot on the phone table, as if it had always been there and would always remain. The cord, still straight then, stretched toward the wall in a quiet promise that this was not a toy, but a tool of connection — dependable, familiar, and woven into the ordinary rhythms of home life.

And when it rang, it carried its own unmistakable voice: two longs and a short, a sound that announced itself clearly and left no doubt that someone was calling.