Karen Wils photo The big old yellow phone hangs on the kitchen wall at home in 1974. In the photo, my mom presents my brother Jim with a birthday cake. Today marks the anniversary of my mom's passing. Luella Rose Oct. 10, 1931 to April 1, 2009.

ESCANABA — Once upon a time –many, many years ago — there was a time when telephone calls were a treasured thing.

Back in the 1970s the phone was a big thing that hung like a sacred object on the wall. In households like ours, with lots of kids, answering the phone was a privilege.

Can you still hear that awesome antique “ring, ring, ring?”

Nothing has changed so fast in my lifetime than the advances in phone technology and service.

Do you remember the days when all Escanaba phone numbers started with ST6-0000? Then later it was called 786-0000 and finally expanded to include 789-0000 numbers too.

In my younger days, unless you got a busy signal, every phone call placed was answered with a cheerful “hello.”

Perhaps the saddest part of all this wonderful technology is the fact that real people do not answer telephones anymore.

At home, the majority of people screen their phone calls before answering a ringing phone. At most places of business, automated answering machines prompt us to hit numbers until we reach the department or person we want to talk to.

Gone are the days of a sweet-voiced secretary answering calls and asking how she may help us.

From your prescription drugs to ordering your Saturday night pizza, chances are everything is done by a robocall.

Verbal skills and phone manners are things of the past.

I recall back in my grade school years, the telephone company had an outreach program on phone courtesy.

They visited classrooms and presented a film strip (before movies) that taught young phone handlers how to answer in a loud, clear voice, how to take a message for Mom or Dad and how not to “hog” the phone.

My mother was a very social person who was always busy helping out with many school, church and community events.

Answering the phone for her and taking a message was such an important task. When the phone rang at my childhood home many feet scrambled to answer it. The teenage years were real fun with one phone for the whole family to use hanging on the kitchen wall.

I remember my mother telling me how when she was young, her parents had one of the first phones on Sheridan Road because my grandfather run a small store out of the front of their house. Customers would come to the store to buy a few groceries and to make a phone call.

Today almost everyone carries a cell phone (I don’t have one yet). They are so wonderful to enhance communication especially in an emergency.

Cell phones help us stay connected with loved ones far away, but many times they hamper communication with loved ones that are sitting right next to us.

Talk to your grandparents and parents about the evolution of telephones in their life time.

Make a call this weekend to someone who may be lonely. Just say “hello.”

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Karen (Rose) Wils is a lifelong north Escanaba resident. Her folksy columns appear weekly in Lifestyles.