Welcome to mcdowellnews.com. Skip directly to: our Keyword Search, Section Navigation, Content.

mcdowellnews.com - The McDowell News

HomeNewsEntertainmentSportsLifestylesOpinionCommunityWeather Online Tools Jobs | Real Estate | Shopping | Classified

Scott Hollifield: It's tough to disconnect from the past

By Scott Hollifield | The McDowell News

Published: May 7, 2009

I should cut the cord, but I'm finding it difficult to do so.

Our home phone, the landline, is a big, green 30- or 40-year-old rotary dinosaur that makes an almost forgotten sound - kind of a "scshhhhh" -- when I lift my dialing finger and the wheel rotates counter-clockwise back into place. It came with the house, it worked and I found no reason to remove it from its place on the shelf in the hallway.

It's a conversation piece in more ways than one.

On the handle is a sticker with the number for a funeral home that long ago changed its name. I'll never know why the previous owner wanted quick access to the number for the funeral home, mainly because he eventually became a customer of that funeral home's successor and I can't ask him.

The phone doesn't announce calls with a shrill electronic pulse, bird-like flutter or dance tune. Real bells are housed beneath that rock-solid exterior, and when someone calls with important information, it goes off like a four-alarm fire.

But important information seldom comes via The Old Phone.

We've all got cell phones, those handy electronic leashes, and that's where family and friends usually deliver news good and bad. When The Old Phone rings, it's often for one of the other Scott Hollifields. There are several about, including the preacher. Callers are disappointed to learn I will not deliver the message on Sunday.

With cells in our family pockets and The Old Phone mostly idle, I know I should save a few bucks in these uncertain economic times and jettison the landline. According to a survey from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more and more people are doing just that. (And, yes, I, too, wonder why the CDC is conducting surveys on phone usage, but I figure it's somehow part of the economic stimulus plan or a response to swine flu.)

Twenty percent of American homes depend on cell phones only, and another 15 percent have landlines hooked to computers and take no calls, meaning 35 percent of households receive calls exclusively through wireless, the survey found.

So why am I having difficulty cutting the cord?

Nostalgia, most likely.

The Old Phone reminds me of the phone my family had when I was a kid.

We shared a number, kind of a two-person party line, with the oil company across the creek where my dad worked. I'm not sure whether this arrangement was for economic reasons or my dad wanted to spring into action and deliver a load of No. 2 fuel oil day or night, but those calling me between the hours of 7 a.m. and 5 p.m. weekdays (7 a.m. to noon on Saturdays) first got the oil company.

They were instructed to immediately call back and let the phone ring. This quick succession of calls and lengthy second ring was the official signal informing me that someone was calling to discuss (a) pee-wee baseball practice; (b) Evel Knievel on "The Wide World of Sports"; or (c) how it was a good thing to stroll over to the monkey bars when Cindy wore a skirt.

Eventually, more people wanted to chat with my family than order 100 gallons of kerosene, and we got our own landline.

It was a great day. It was our own number, and soon we would be right there in the bright yellow book amongst all the other up-and-coming Hollifields. We had arrived as a family. No longer would I prematurely answer the phone and explain to a gruff logger that I was not the person who could deliver his rear-end grease.

Today, when The Old Phone rings in the hallway in four-alarm fashion, I am sometimes, for just a split second, 35 years younger and wondering if it's for the oil company or me.

And I smile.

I should cut the cord, but I'm finding it difficult to do so.

Scott Hollifield is editor/general manager of The McDowell News in Marion and a columnist for The Media General News Service. Contact him at P.O. Box 610, Marion, N.C. 28752 or e-mail rhollifield@mcdowellnews.com.