The Diary – Advancements don’t always actually ring in any progress

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 28/10/2010 (5550 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

"Mr. Watson: come here. I want you." These were the first words ever spoken on a telephone, and young Watson, Aleck Bell’s research assistant, heard them in a distant room of the house, and he came running.

Remember this date: March 10. 1876. Yes, the telephone had been invented, but mind you, there was only one instrument available. This was to change.

In Brandon, some time around the end of the First World War, my father went to the telephone office and ordered the installation of two of these devices which carried human voice via lightning, according to early theory: one for his mother, at 342 Second St., and one for the family home at 337 17th St.

Even in the early 1930s, when I was working in the CP telegraph office, there were "call boys" with bikes working out of the yard office, who had to cycle out to the homes of railroaders who were being called to report for duty, but who had no telephones. You know the rest of this story.

But, do you know the story as it exists today? I can take you to a surprising number of Brandon-Westman homes which have no telephone on the wall: they get by (reportedly) when every member of the household has a cellphone.

Now, just for a minute, let’s talk about you. Yes, you. How do you make contact with one of these households if you don’t know the email address or cellphone number of one of the family members?

We pause here for a news bulletin of the personal type.

Two weeks ago, when I was on a trip to the West Coast, the time arrived for me to leave Vancouver Island and relocate to Vancouver. My son Timothy made a reservation for me at a hotel named Shaughnessy Village. Not only does it have a good reputation, but it is equdistant from the homes of the family members I wanted to see. Only one problem: after my first night’s sleep in my new digs I went to the office to say that I couldn’t find the telephone, and I had to make some calls.

STOP THE PRESSES: there are no longer any phones in guest rooms in this establishment, nor will there be in the future. I was told all their guests have cellphones, and they do all their contact work with suppliers via the Internet.

I see a business opportunity here. Why doesn’t MTS carry cellphone numbers for a fee? Why don’t one of you launch a cellphone number service and operate it on a commercial business?

New related topic. I have concluded that our banks and credit unions do not, repeat NOT, want to talk to us on the telephone. If they did, they would scrap those !@#%%^&&*() electronic answering systems that are the latest curse in the lives of the seniors.

If they really want to talk to us, they could demonstrate this desire by giving us an old-fashioned service provided by a telephone operator. It surprises me that in the Age of Communications, that I cannot talk to a banker because I am unable to break through that electronic service, and I am unable to contact a doctor electronically because they apparently do not believe in using the Internet for patient for patient communications.

Progress is elusive when you make yards with one play, and lose them with another.

 

Fred McGuinness is a well-known local writer and ‘editor emeritus’ of the Brandon Sun.

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