Wish I could call my dad up on heavenly cell phone in a pinch

I never had a phone conversation with my father while he was on his cell phone.

There was never a lot of conversation of any kind between us but it struck me the other day that even though he carried a cell phone for a good number of years before he died, almost 15 years ago, we never used the device to connect.

It is truly unbelievable how much life has changed with those devices taking over our lives. If my father knew how much I spent this last week on a cell phone for my wife he would have had a fit.

I know having a cell phone was of great use for him. It would have been even more use if it had come along 30 years earlier when the trucks, tractors and combines he operated weren’t all that reliable. Back then if something broke down in a field or on the road, Dad found his way to the nearest phone somehow and called Mom to bring a part, a trailer or tools.

Being in the field all day he got home and stayed on the phone a good part of the evening, catching up with the business of custom harvesting or farming. After all, unless he broke down, he hadn’t seen a phone all day.

Today we complain about dead spots in cell phone coverage; back then he planned ahead and packed a sandwich and the big water jug, since there was not only no checking in by phone but little chance food would show up if Mom were working in town.

Growing up we knew of people who had phones in their vehicles, but the cost of the equipment and service was crazy and the service apparently marginal. When the first cellular phones came out they introduced what was called a bag phone. Someone said that with one of those things slung over our shoulder we looked like we were calling in an air strike in a war zone.

The things really needed to stay plugged into your cigarette lighter socket because the battery went down really fast. So everyone carried them on the console between the front seats or on the hump in the floorboard.

I resisted getting one for a long time, but finally broke down, telling myself it might come in handy if I broke down on the road. If I’d had one that night about 10 years earlier when the transmission on my 1956 Chevy pickup went out I wouldn’t have had to walk all the way to the bar to call Dad to come get me.

Indeed I never used that bag phone much, but amazingly it worked on some pretty lonely stretches of road. Once I was driving along just west of the metropolis of Forrest when my mother-in-law’s voice suddenly filled the cab of my pickup. Apparently I had leaned on the phone and memory dialed her at 6 a.m.

Another time on the same stretch of road I ran a wheel off my vehicle at 2 a.m. and had to call for help. Dad said when he heard the bedroom phone at that hour he knew it was me and I was broke down.

I didn’t talk to him on the cell phone but Mom relayed my location and needs to him and soon he arrived with a trailer to rescue us.

Anytime I’m in a jam I still find myself, after 15 years, wishing I could call Dad up on a heavenly cell phone.

Karl Terry writes for Clovis Media Inc. Contact him at:

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