Long-Distance Christmas

I just realized I'm about to go a full calendar year without posting something on my blog. I have to apologize for this.

The nature of my job has been impacted by COVID-19. While I would usually take time during my lunch and breaks to write articles, I can barely get five minutes of peace without having to put out a figurative fire somewhere. I'm hoping things calm down next year. I have a few articles about ready to go, but I really want to build up a cache before I start blogging regularly again. I thought I would be well into Phase Two and Phase Three by now.

So, I thought I would at least do my annual Christmas post.

It's very interesting to see how things have changed over the last half-century with regards to the holidays. One of those has specifically to do with the long-distance calls to relatives and other people you weren't able to spend Christmas with in person. Does anyone remember how long-distance use to work? You had to call at specific times to get the best rates. If you called long-distance during a weekday, the cost was outrageous and you only did that in the event of emergencies. For whatever reason, someone decided it was a great idea to have the lowest rates between 11pm and 5am the next morning. And this was back in the day that if the phone rang and you were at home, you were obligated by law to answer it.

So on specific holidays, the overnight rates were in effect for most of the day. EVERYBODY in the country was trying to call their relatives. If you tried to call long-distance, you would get a recording that asked you to try your call again later. One Christmas, we were trying to call my uncle Ord for eight hours straight and we could not get through once! We did get to connect with him after 5pm, when the long-distance went back to the regular evening rate. While Grandma Bend was glad to finally get to talk to her son, she didn't like that she was going to have to pay the extra money for the long-distance call.

I couldn't help but wonder if the phone company didn't just shut down long-distance for the day and force everyone to use the evening rate if they wanted to call their loved ones so badly. It was bad for us because we only needed to make this ONE call. I can't imagine what it was like for those who had several people they needed to contact.

It is so hard to imagine that we used to live like this with our old technology. In at least the past 30 years, I haven't had any problems with trying to call people on Christmas. I can even make multiple calls and I never get any recording that tells me to try my call later.

People are always complaining how the cost of living does nothing but go up. This is the one thing that has actually gone down.

In this respect, I don't miss the old days.