How Earl's Phone Changed the World

This appeared on Sunday, June 3, 2007

Roger Lerch, perhaps my favorite teacher, told us students in his Modern European History course at Walnut Hills High School in Cincinnati, Ohio, back in September 1974, that the world had changed more in the past 150 years than it had in the previous 2,000.

And at the time, he hadn‘t even ordered a sandwich at Wawa without ever having to actually speak a single, solitary word.

The memory of Mr. Lerch, and of his remark, came to me upon the visit to the Daily Local News of Molly Morrison, the president of the Natural Lands Trust and former head chef and chief bottle washer on the fifth floor of the Chester County Courthouse, the aerie of the commissioners and their staff.

I hadn‘t seen Molly in a long while, and she hadn‘t been to the Daily Local News offices in a decade or more. So with others in the room, our reunion led to a series of memories about past tribulations between the newspaper, me, Molly and, of course, Commissioner Extrordinaire Earl M. Baker, Molly‘s original patron.

The story we both remembered and liked the best was the saga of Earl‘s car phone.

The year being 1984 or so, mobile telephones were something new to the landscape. And Earl, being a man who craved communication of any kind, (He once told me the sentence he least liked reading in the newspaper was: ”Baker could not be reached for comment.“) decided he needed one. So he got the county to ante up.

For us in the press, it seemed the story of a lifetime. A phone for his car? Who did Earl think he was — the president of the United States?

So we took the ball and ran with it. Story after story, day after day. Who else in government had car phones? Who did Earl talk to on the thing? What were the Chester County taxpayers shelling out for him to jabber whilst cruising down the Schuylkill? We even got a cartoonist to draw a picture of a Princess Phone on wheels, with Earl‘s photo superimposed on the dial.

The phone itself was — so I have heard — enormous, bigger than a small dog and about as easy to manipulate.

And today? Governments hand out taxpayer-funded cell phones like politicians used to hand out lollypops. If the Daily Local News were to opine on the nonessential nature of government-paid cell phones, readers would look at us like we were publishing from the planet Neptune, not Lionville.

So I thought about how times had changed, and how technology has sped up so incredibly that something which was shockingly unnecessary 20 years ago is today considered hopelessly out of date — like Earl‘s massive car phone.

The next day, I found myself standing in line at the Wawa wanting to order a sandwich, and being completely ignored by the deli staff. I noticed a screen or two near the counter and realized that ordering now had to be done by means of a touch menu. Within a few moments I had my salami with provolone paid for and in a bag and out the door.

But I had not spoken a single, solitary word to anyone involved in the process, nor did they expect me to.

And that, Mr. Lerch, makes me yearn just a little for the days before the world changed.