For a number of years I’ve been proclaiming that the downfall of America would be due to cellphones and reality TV. I wish to modify that prediction. Reality (?) TV remains as poor as it ever was — ...

It’s hard to imagine in the age of cellphones, but for decades, many people used “party line” telephones they shared with multiple users. Party lines tend to be associated with rural areas, b ut there ...

Many of our younger readers have little or no knowledge of the experiences of older folk in operating their home telephones in the past. But, of all the changes in telephones and telephone systems ...

In Garrison Keillor's "Lake Wobegon Days," there's a passage that describes the fictional Minnesota town's telephone operator, who was the go-to person to hear about news, gossip and goings-on around ...

If my family ever shared a party line phone, I do not remember it. What I do remember is a big black rotary phone that hung on the wall. Every phone was rotary then. No, it did not have a crank on the ...