Good morning. ☕☕☕

30 May 2026

I remember when telephones with push‑buttons started showing up. They looked so modern, so futuristic, like something out of a science‑fiction movie. If you had one sitting on your desk, you must have been somebody — even though, at first, they didn’t really do anything the old rotary phones couldn’t do. I still wonder why we started with a dial instead of buttons in the first place. I don’t wonder long, though. It had to be whatever the technology of the time could manage.

When I was a small child living with my grandparents — my parents were off at the Great Lakes while my dad went through Navy training — I had to memorize their phone number. To this day, it still doesn’t make sense to me. It was “Sycamore 5‑2453.” Try dialing that into a phone today. There have been a few changes since then.

And isn’t it funny that after all these years, after all the technical leaps that led to the cell phones we carry in our back pockets, we still say we’re “dialing” a number? I’m sure plenty of young people don’t even know what that means. I’ve seen clips online where teenagers are handed an old rotary phone and look as confused as I’d be if someone handed me a crank‑and‑jar churn. I wouldn’t know its purpose, let alone how to use it.

Makes you wonder what the next fifty years will bring. I’m certain of one thing: nobody will be running down to the telegraph office. And someday, even cell phones will go the way of buggy whips.

“We shape our tools and thereafter our tools shape us.” — Marshall McLuhan

“Nostalgia is a file that removes the rough edges from the good old days.” — Doug Larson

“If you don’t like change, you’ll like irrelevance even less.” — General Eric Shinseki

#photo #photography #photographer #photographylovers #wildlife #nature #bird #birds #birding #birdwatching #birdphotography #morning #technology #telephones #dial

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The Sparrow Who Looked Down "Three house sparrows perch together on a smooth metal pipe, silhouetted against a soft, open sky. Their tiny bodies form a loose row, but each bird’s posture — and each one’s imagined line of dialogue — gives them a distinct personality, as if they’re actors in a small, feathered play. The left sparrow stands upright and slightly angled toward the center bird. Its feathers are warm brown and softly patterned, and its posture feels calm, almost admiring. Hovering above it is a gentle thought: “He is so smart and brave.” The bird seems to be watching the one beside it with quiet confidence, as though impressed by a friend’s courage. The center sparrow, a male with a bold dark bib and a gray crown, stands tall and steady. His chest is puffed just enough to suggest pride or determination. Above him floats the line: “The trick is to not look down.” His stance matches the words — he looks like the self‑appointed leader of this tiny trio, offering advice with theatrical seriousness. The right sparrow leans forward dramatically, its head dipped and body angled downward as if peering over the edge of the pipe. Its feathers are soft brown, and its posture radiates sudden worry. Above it, a panicked thought bubble reads: “Oh no! I looked down! What happens now?” The bird’s body language perfectly matches the anxious humor of the line — a moment of comic regret perched on a narrow metal stage." - Microsoft Copilot

Or DexMedia might also ship them to your region if you have a land line.

In my area they mail them to certain neighborhoods where the geriatric boomer brigades and the hippy generation are known to still reside. The last place I lived 4 years ago they still delivered them every year. In my new place they don't deliver to my neighborhood. For everyone else you need to order them, and they are only available for certain areas.

I surmise that the print phone books will never be completely extinct. They are critical infrastructure if the data grid goes down in some disaster. There are still millions of active copper phone lines across the country, and the way they were buried, it should be another two generations before all that copper corrodes. I have lines that are 50 years old and still in good condition. It is just sitting there, waiting in case it is ever needed.

#YellowPages #WhitePages #PhoneBooks #Telephones #Phones #RetroTech