Ten digit telephone dialing became official this week.
But there was a much simpler time in the telephone lexicon.
Telephones were all land lines and you needed to contact a telephone central operator to make your calls.
In some communities, the connection was very easy to accommodate and the numbers were simple, starting with No. 1 as the first number in the telephone book and moving up through the two and three digit numbers.
The telephone operators, especially the veterans, could pretty well read your mind. Certain residences with certain people at certain times of the day would be connecting with certain people at certain other residences or businesses. You could count on it. These operators were the early day text messengers. If called upon, they might even know where your kid was if you phoned home and there was no answer.
In other words, in the simpler times, the operator was part of the community a person who was happy to link one person with another.
Only in the larger centres did the phone numbers exceed three digits.
Then along came dial phones. Operators were eased out, the switchboards in small offices and in back bedrooms became obsolete. Suddenly seven digit dialing became the mandate.
But very soon, some SaskTel customers found out that although seven digit dialing was seen to be necessary, they knew they only needed to dial five numbers. Not a great time saver really, but what the heck, if you supposedly needed to dial 555-2415, but really only needed to dial 52415, then that's what you did and your call went through.
That lasted for a few years, right through the rotary dial and into the punch dial worlds of the 1960s and into the 1970s.
Soon enough, the five digit regime ended. No connection unless you dialed all seven digits to get a local call completed.
In the pre- and post-Second World War world you simply asked the operator to "get me long distance" if you needed to call another city or town, near or far. They made the necessary connection and you waited until the route call was made and cleared and you listened in while the operators performed their magic.
With the seven digit system, the area codes were necessary as the prefix to the long distance call and every province, state, country and region had their own.
Saskatchewan is now about to acknowledge another sure sign of growth with the addition of another area code later this month with 639 about to join our familiar 306 as a Saskatchewan area number.
Yes, there are still operators on standby, ready to assist us when we need them. Some are automated, but almost sound like your friendly neighbourhood operator of days gone by. All are efficient and pleasantly helpful. But we hear so little from them now. We dial India or Iraq without additional assistance. We have mobility in our phone connection systems that defy descriptions. We are so, so connected.
So when Rick Perry uncovered this old Perry Hardware calendar from 1947, with the simplest of phone numbers, he said he just had to forward it on to us as a reminder of those days when phoning your local hardware store required one simple step, one simple phone number.
Oh, and if you were a kid and learning how to use the telephone for the first time you were reminded that when you asked the operator to connect you, you always said "please" because chances were she knew you, she was your neighbour, not a digital service provider.
You couldn't act like a brat with that text messenger.
