Cell phone story
And a little experiment.
Here's an early story about cellular phones. I'll tell you why in a minute.
A long time ago, back when we had car phones but not true mobiles, my brother was driving my dad's car on the old, elevated I-93 Southeast Expressway in Boston.
The highway isn't there anymore and with good reason. Anyway, the car broke down with no warning in the worst possible place: left lane of the highway, just around a bend so that drivers coming behind couldn't see until they were right on top.
Traffic flew by, and my brother couldn't get the car to move.
Enter the car phone. We weren't supposed to use it except in an emergency, but this fit the narrow definition. So, my brother dialed quickly, and under duress -- and heard a familiar voice on the other end.
I'm told that the conversation went like this:
My brother: Is this 911?
My mom (!!!): What? Hello?
My brother: Sorry, I'm trying to call 911!
He hung up. I guess in his haste, he'd accidentally hit the "speed dial" button and called my mom, instead of the "emergency" button.
Fortunately, my mom did not have a heart attack. I think a police car showed up and pushed my siblings out of the way; it turns out the problem came down to a $2 spring that had fallen out of the accelerator pedal.
We can all laugh about it now. Why tell this story today?
Because I was surprised to see that with everything going on in the world right now -- on-and-off trade wars, Elon Musk taking over major systems of the U.S. Treasury and closing government agencies, a blockbuster NBA trade, Beyonce winning the Grammy awards for both "best album" (finally) and "best country album" (controversial) and a nonstop stream of stories and news out of DC -- the number-1 most-popular article on the website of The Wall Street Journal was:
Christopher Walken Has Never Owned a Cellphone
‘I don’t have technology,’ says the 81-year-old actor, who stars in the sci-fi series ‘Severance’
Walken has a role in the Apple TV series, Severance, and the Journal did a Q&A that ran a week ago. Somehow it's jumped to the top of the most-read rankings.
Q: Did you go back and study “Severance” before filming season 2?
A: I don’t have technology. I only have a satellite dish on my house. So I’ve seen “Severance” on DVDs that they’re good enough to send me. I don’t have a cellphone. I’ve never emailed or, what do you call it, Twittered.
Q: Does it make you feel a bit alien in a world where everyone is attached to their phones?
A: Not really. I’ve never had a watch either. But if I need the time, I just ask somebody. Likewise, once in a while when I need to use a phone, I just ask if I can borrow one.
If that's what the people want, let's go with it. A few more cell phone stories:
1992: The first time I saw a cell phone in the wild, I couldn't take my eyes off a guy with what was probably a Motorola bag phone—a brick-sized phone attached to a battery pack in a bag the size of a small briefcase.
1998: I once had a job negotiating to build cell phone towers in rural Pennsylvania. Lots of fun anecdotes about showing up unannounced to offer Amish farmers $750/month leases for 20 years on small splits of land where they couldn't grow anything anyway.
2007: I was an early adapter, got my first iPhone about 2 months after they came out. Back then, there was no App Store, and you couldn't even cut-and-paste text. Then, I had the truly early experience of having my iPhone stolen out of my car.
I think we can take this whole thing in two directions, and maybe you'll want to play along.
The first is with a poll, which you'll find below. In short, we're two weeks into the Trump administration, and I'd love to learn how much you're paying attention to the day-by-day, minute-by-minute news out of Washington.
Because those kinds of stories were number 2 through number 5 on the WSJ list, as I might have expected.
The second is with the comments. I tend to enjoy these look-backs at our first encounters with things we take for granted now.
So, if you're up for it, share your best "early cell phone story." (Or else, if you happen to have one: your best Christopher Walken story.)
We'll see which direction gets more traction.
Here’s our poll …
7 other things worth knowing today
Days after announcing a 25% tariff on imports from Canada and Mexico, President Trump agreed to delay them for one month. It’s unclear what happened substantively during meetings with the leaders of both countries, as the key things the U.S. says Canada and Mexico now promise — $1.3 billion in Canadian border enforcement and 10,000 Mexican soldiers at the border — are very similar to what they’d already done or announced before the crisis. (NBC News, CBC, Reuters)
Two Democratic senators said Monday they will place a blanket hold on all of President Trump’s State Department nominees until the president backs off his effort to shut down USAID, the nation’s chief foreign assistance agency. Trump adviser Elon Musk has made a strong push to close USAID, which he called on X a “viper’s nest of radical-left Marxists who hate America.” (The Hill)
Headline: “The Young, Inexperienced Engineers Aiding Elon Musk’s Government Takeover: Engineers between 19 and 24, most linked to Musk’s companies, are playing a key role as he seizes control of federal infrastructure.” (Wired; backup link)
Report: Next to go is the U.S. Education Department, through an executive order that would build on the president’s campaign promise to hammer the longtime conservative target. (Reuters)
Super Bowl tickets on the secondary market are less than half what last year's went for. The Chiefs, who face the Philadelphia Eagles on Sunday, are hoping to be the first team to win three successive Super Bowl rings. Among possible factors: the fact that the stadium in New Orleans holds 10,000 more people than last year's game in Las Vegas, and "Chiefs fatigue." I'm still going to watch, though. (CNN)
Major League Baseball fired an umpire for sharing betting accounts with a friend who wagered on baseball. The league announced Monday that a decision to terminate umpire Pat Hoberg’s employment was upheld after an appeal. MLB found no evidence that he manipulated the outcome of any games, but MLB says he intentionally deleted messages related to the league’s probe. (NY Post)
Wild story: a professional trick jump roper who holds several world records saved a boy from drowning in a not quite frozen pond by using "his prized possessions: two 16-foot-long cloth jump ropes, each nearly a half-inch in diameter." He was honored by the town where the boy lives recently. “I left one of the two ropes by the shore in case the ice broke as I went,” David Fisher, 61, recalled on Sunday. “If I went in, I figured maybe we could make a chain, and they could get me at the other end with the other rope.” (NY Times)
I don't think you can get a picture for the kinds of things Fischer does as a professional rope jumper without a video. So here's one from a few years ago.
In the early ‘90s my sweet husband happened upon someone who had an ‘83 or ‘85 white Lincoln Continental(the kind with the sloped trunk and the spare imprint on it)for sale and he bought the damn thing! Anyway, he went to the local cell phone store(pre Verizon)and had a phone installed on the floor under the dash. It’s been so long now I don’t remember exactly how or how well it worked but I still have the phone number that was issued to us back then; at least 30 or so years ago.
As for watching the unfolding crashing and burning of our country, all I can say to indicate how closely I’ve been following events, it’s 10:52 PM and I’m just now getting to Understandably so you tell me 🤓.
I remember listening to an interview on the radio about this new contraption called an iphone. I had been living in a very rural town in Canada that didn't have any internet access, and only sketchy cell service at best- so I reeeeeally didn't have any frame of reference for the conversation. Anyway. I heard "eye-phone". Imagining someone holding the thing to their eyes instead of their ear, I thought "Well that's ridiculous. Why would anybody want such a thing?"