Life with a landline

“He’s in the barn, hold on a minute.” Words muttered over the phone by my grandma from the house phone before she would cover the mouth piece with her hand and say to me, “Tell the boys to pick up the phone.”

That was my cue to leave the house and run 150 yards down the hill to the milk barn, open the parlor door and yell over the milk pump hum, “Phone’s for you.” My grandma would watch out the house window for my dad or uncle to appear from the milkhouse with the barn phone at their ear, coiled cord draped through the door crack, before hanging up on her end.

I told this to my kids the other day as they were playing with the landline phone that is still attached to the milkhouse wall. It no longer works, but the joy of pushing the number buttons and seeing how far they can go before the cord yanks the entire phone off its base is a favorite pastime of theirs. They struggle to grasp the concept that phones didn’t always go with you everywhere you went.

“Landline?” I explained this was how people used to get a hold of each other years ago. Not being able to call a specific person whenever and wherever you please? Strange. No ability to video call or text message? Unimaginable.

It was probably easier to get a hold of our family during chore time in that era compared to now. If you called the landline years ago, there was a good chance someone in the house or barn would pick up. And we couldn’t avoid anyone, because there was no caller identification to filter who we picked up for.

Nowadays, we all bring our cell phones with us in the barn, but there is zero cell service in the parlor, and it’s hit or miss in the freestall barn and some of the other buildings. Several of our fields are also in no-man’s land. I can disappear from society for hours. No texts or calls in or out. Internet reception is also sketchy, so there is minimal app usage happening. My phone comes alive at certain locations throughout the farmyard, nonstop buzzing from the texts and notifications coming through now that I am reachable.

It doesn’t feel like that long ago, but technology has changed exponentially fast since my youth. And now I’m at the age where I’m embarrassingly sick of new technology. I can’t keep up with constantly learning. I don’t have the mental capacity.

Yes, there are obvious upsides to today’s cellular technology. I can look up a cow’s breeding information on the spot, find a video tutorial about how to fix something when we are knee-deep into a machinery repair, or add to my grocery list from inside the tractor cab.

But there is something nostalgically refreshing about a time when constant updates and life events weren’t easily at our fingertips. News items were available a couple of times a day on the TV, after-church conversations were where you learned about life updates of neighbors and friends, and phone conversations felt more in-depth and important.

Life felt more slow-paced and intentional. There was no constant bombardment of news or a platform for people to write things they would never dream of saying face-to-face. Maybe that’s why I’ve recently deleted many of my social media accounts and started limiting what apps I use on my phone. Heck, maybe I should just go back to the landline. Life seemed a whole lot better in that era.

Jill is a stay-at-home mom who helps part time on her family’s 140-cow dairy farm near Forest City, Minnesota. She and her husband, Aaron, have two children: Hayes and Nash.