Give me the days of the crank telephone where you actually “rang” the number you were calling. I’ve had enough of these modern technological advances.

Back in the day of the black phone on the wall, when we called a neighbor, at least four or five others could pick up the phone and listen and sometimes even join in the conversation. This is what was called a party line. Today, a party line means something altogether different.

It’s pretty commonplace today to receive phone calls at dinnertime, from cheerful people offering everything from septic tank cleaning to cruises to the Bahamas. During political campaign seasons, calls from headlining personalities are frequent. I even got a call from Susan Collins a few months ago. (She could not hear my side of the conversation.)

A new technological way to interrupt a meal has begun. This is the phone call you answer and hear a recorded voice say something to the effect that “all our lines are busy, but this is the XYZ Company calling and we know you don’t want to miss this call. Please hold for the next available operator.”

Sure. I’ll sit there holding the phone, waiting for yet another recording, while my supper gets cold.

I liked it better in the olden days when I turned the handle, one full turn and two short ones, to call my cousin, the phone rang on the other end, and several mothers in the neighborhood picked up the phone to listen in. If the person you were calling didn’t answer, someone “on the line” could usually tell you where he or she was.

Of course, that was in the day when blackberries were something you picked and made jam from, cable was a fancy name for rope and a computer was a mathematician. If I’d heard the term iPod 20 years ago, I would have thought it was some discovery of a deep-sea denizen.

Times change. I’ve figured out most of the high tech stuff, but I have a problem adjusting to today’s flagrant language, especially by young people, the many mistakes in spelling and particularly the vanishing of good manners.

I think etiquette (what’s left of it) needs a major overhaul. I like having doors opened for me and I expect (and give) a “please” and “thank you.” And I remember a time when the dinner hour was off limits to visitors and/or phone calls. Bring those days back, please!

See you next week.