Say What?

My Take

 DiVoran Lites

We celebrate Alexander Graham Bell’s invention, the telephone. in June. I wonder what he said when he tried it out. What would you say if you didn’t think your statement would be going down in history?

I know what my dad would have said. He would have said, “Hot dog!” That’s because, you see, dad liked progress, new things. He paid thirty dollars for his first ball-point pen. That seems excessive in this day and age when you can get them in bulk for nothing much. But he was pleased with his pen because he came up in the days when the only common writing instruments were a pencil or a dip nib pen in a holder. He had some trouble in school because he so much wanted to live out of doors working with his hands. A dip pen could make a big mess, for which a kid would get into trouble. After that came fountain pens and they were better, but tedious and messy, too. They often leaked. So a ballpoint pen was a miracle to dad. They had refills back in those days, too.

His mother, my grandmother, was in favor of progress too. She didn’t believe in looking back and talking about the past. She didn’t tell stories or her childhood and young adulthood.

Grandmother loved the telephone. She talked for about an hour every day with her best friend who lived in the same town and whom she saw frequently. When she got her first T. V. she made everyone watch the commercials because it was only right. After all hadn’t those people paid for the shows?

We all love technology and we have different ways of relating to it. Now would you like to know what Alexander Graham Bell Actually said? Here it is as recorded probably by a newspaper man.

“Mr. Watson come here, I want to see you.”

I’ll bet Alexander Graham Bell had no idea that we’d still be looking up his words 138 years later or he would have said something profound.. After thinking it over, I’ve decided I would have said. “Can you hear me? Can you hear me now?” Makes sense. In case you don’t have anything else to think about—I wonder, what might you have said?

First phone call

Tags: Alexander Graham Bell, Bell’s, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution, Sound recording and reproduction