The Old and the New

Sharon invited her grandson Kyle and his son, Jayden, into the house.

Jayden immediately sat on the couch and started playing his favorite video game.

           “I brought Jayden for your visitation time. Are you sure you can get along with him? He is easily bored.”

           “I’ve raised boys. I should know.” The great-grandmother looked fondly at Jayden. “He was a cute baby, and he is cute now.”

           “Ten-year-old boys are not ‘cute’!” Jayden listened more than the adults thought.

I also bought you a cell phone,” said Kyle. “I know you hate electronic devices, so it is a flip phone.”

Sharon took from him the gray, thick, driver license sized flip phone.

           “These new-fangled phones are too fiddly. I have a telephone already. Why did you bring me this, this telephone? You are forgetting your mother was the one who had to disable the blinking red 12:00 o’clock on my VCR.”

           “That was years ago. Things are better now . . . We’ve been over this before,” said Kyle. “You’re seventy-years-old. What if you are stranded with car troubles on the road? You don’t want to depend on a stranger, do you?

           “I’ll find somewhere to call you.”

           Kyle groaned and dropped that subject. “What if you get lost?”

           “I only drive to a couple of towns. I have been there millions of time.”

           “What if the electricity goes out and your handheld phone won’t work?”

           Sharon frowned. “You have me there . . . How do you work this dadblamed thing?”

           In Sharon’s opinion, he punched random numbers, spoke too fast, and glanced at her like she should be understanding all of it.

           “I need you to take more time to show me.”

           “Can’t. I’m late for work as is,” he said heading out the door.

           Sharon rushed out the door to catch him. “How do I know what to do?” she whined.

           “Look it up on the online manual,” Kyle called back as he sat behind the steering wheel.

           “Online? . . . Online?! Online as a computer? I don’t have a computer.” Sharon rolled her eyes as she watched him drive away.

           Jayden, with smart phone at his side, casually walked to be behind her and said, “You can use a tablet.”

           “The thing I got for Christmas? I haven’t used it since it was given to me.”

           “I know how. Where’s it at?”

           “No. I do not want to spend my time with you doing computer things.”

           “At least let me see if the cord fits my phone. My phone needs recharged.”

           Sharon reluctantly retrieved the tablet.

           “There’s no cord in the box,” said Jayden. He searched the flip phone box too, but his dad must have missed sending that cord too.

           “Do you want to play Chinese checkers?” asked the great-grandmother.

           “No! I don’t like board games.”

           “Do you want to learn to make cookies?”

           “NO! I want to play on my smart phone!”

           Sharon knew her body was too stiff to offer playing basketball.

           “Are you good with electronics?” she said to the boy with the folded arms who sat on the couch.

“You don’t have a computer,” Jayden pouted.

           Sharon turned her attention from Jayden to the flip phone, opened it, and pressed random keys, but did not get the same results as Kyle. “Dadgum flip phone. It’s too fiddly. “

           “What does fiddly mean?

           “Too complicated. Tricky. Too many things to remember. I don’t know where to begin,” said Sharon as she slammed the flip phone on the table. 

           Jayden uncrossed his arms as he considered a challenge for himself.

           “I can teach you,” said Jayden. He picked up the new device.

           Sharon eagerly accepted. “It’s worth a try.” She watched him press random keys as he learned how to operate it.

           “It’s a lot like my smart phone,” said a surprised boy.

           “Then show me how to dial a number.”

           Jayden handed her the phone. “Open the phone and start entering numbers.”

           She pressed “1” and nothing happened.

           While Sharon attempted to understand why nothing happened, Jayden said, “Press ‘1’ again.”

           Sharon did so and the number “1” appeared. “Ohhh.”

           “Now type in the rest of my phone number and wait.”

           Sharon followed his instructions. “It’s ringing!”

           “You should get voice mail since my phone needs re-charged.”

           “I hear an answering machine. I know how to use the telephone!” Sharon almost jumped up and down.

           Jayden showed her what keys to press to make the phone do different commands.

           But the grandmother felt old when she did not catch on. She accidentally pressed a key three times and received an error message. She made a face and handed it to Jayden.

           Sharon changed the subject before Jayden could explain. “Your father said something about texting. Do you know what that is? I’d rather learn that.”

           Jayden showed the right buttons to press. She had to use the bifocals of her glasses to read the keyboard, but she managed to understand.  

           “That’s it for me,” said the great-grandmother. “I think my head will explode if I try to learn more.”

           “Information overload, huh?”

           “Uhh, yeah.” Sharon smiled at Jayden. “Thank you. Is there something I can teach you?”

           “Nah. What you know is too old. It wouldn’t do me any good.”

            Now Sharon challenged herself. “Have you seen a rotary telephone?”

           “No,” Jayden said cautiously. “Is it old or new?”

           “I used it when I was young. Would you like to see it?”

           Jayden tightened his lips, before saying, “No way!”

           “I want to go in the attic to find my old rotary telephone. Let’s go look for it.”

           Jayden’s face said, Are you kidding?

           The grandmother hung out her bait. “You’ll be the only one in your class to know what it is. Or how to use it.”

           After a pause to consider, he said, “I’m in.”

           The steep steps creaked as they climbed. The attic’s extra heat and mustiness surprised Jayden. He had never been in an attic before.

           The room’s ceiling fitted together to form a peak. Although too short for Sharon, the height fit right for Jayden.

           “I don’t know where my daughter put my belongings. She said she put things here for a garage sale. Do you see a pink boxy looking thing with numbers on it?”

           Jayden looked around while his great-grandmother leaned over to search by lifting and moving boxes aside.

           “This is boxy and has letters as well as numbers, but there are gaps between the keys. Is this it?”

           “No. That’s a manual typewriter. I did my homework in high school on it.”

           “It looks like a keyboard,” said Jayden. He pressed keys. Chuck clink. Chuck clink. Chuck clink. “It’s harder to press than computer keys. And a lot noisier. What’s this lever for?”  

           “Press keys,” said Sharon, “until you reach the end and a bell rings.” Chuck clink. Chuck clink. Brrring. “You need to go to the next line. Now press the lever.” Whoosh clank. A bar above the keys shifted to start a new line.

           “This is more fun that typing with a computer.”

           Sharon laughed.

           While the old woman looked in boxes, Jayden found a white circular thing. He pulled on it. It was hard to stretch.

           “Is this for wrapping something for shipping?”

           The great grandmother snorted. “Not quite. Your mother exercises so she doesn’t have to wear it. It is called a ‘girdle’. It is worn and is supposed to make a person look skinny.” Mumbling to herself, she said, “I don’t know why my daughter didn’t throw that away.”

           Jayden started to put it on.

The old woman said, “Don’t put that on! Only women wore them in my day. Do you want to be like those women?”

He quickly pulled it off.

           “Here it is!” Sharon yelled. Jayden walked to her to see what she pulled out of a packing case.

           The pink, small box sloped on one side. A circle lay centered on top of the slope. The holes – placed regularly around the edge – showed numbers. The curly cord led to the top to a rectangle with knobs on each end.

           “This is it. This is the first telephone I had of my own. It is a rotary phone.” She held it for Jayden to see and feel the smooth surface.

           “I’ve seen this before,” he said, lifting the rectangle, “as an icon. It is for sending a call.

           Sharon shook her head. “It’s called a receiver. It’s for hearing and talking.”

           “It has the numbers in a circle rather than a square,” said the boy.

           “Back then, that is how phone numbers were entered. This is the way they did it.” She stuck a finger in a hole and turned the whole circle and released it three times. Click. Thrum. Clickclick. Thrumm. Clickclickclick. Thrummm. “It still dials all right . . . I wonder if it still works?

           “I used it, until your grandmother insisted I use a handheld phone.”

           Sharon tapped the phone with her hand. “Do you think it would hurt anything if we took it downstairs and tried it on the regular phone lines?”

           “I try things all the time. If it doesn’t work, an error message pops up.”

           The stairs creaked again as they left the attic. With streaks of sweat on their foreheads, both child and great-grandparent breathed in the fresher air of the living room.  

           Jayden watched as Sharon unplugged the handheld phone from the jack and replaced it with the rotary telephone.

           They looked at each other and nodded. Sharon called Kyle. The phone could be heard dialing through. It worked!

           “Hello,” said Kyle.

           “I’m using my old rotary phone right now,” said Sharon with satisfaction. “Jayden and I worked together to learn the flip phone, and this old phone works on the new telephone lines. I guess the old and the new can work together.”