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Ever since I was a young boy I have had an interest in electronics. With a patience and a lot of luck I repaired our family TV set when I was 11 years old.
Then, in sixth grade, I read a story about a young boy riding his bike along a country road when he was passed by an automobile. The driver of the car was talking on a telephone.
This was in 1960 when a phone in the car was a rare sight. The story explained that a mobile car radio operated from a trunk-mounted transmitter to a regional tower that covered a radius of about 40-60 miles.
More than a decade later I read a related magazine report. Telephone engineers were developing a lower-powered mobile telephone that worked on radio towers serving smaller areas (or cells) and a call would seamlessly pass from one tower to the next to deliver an ongoing connection.
This project came to fruition another decade later with the introduction of the cellular telephone system. The first commercially available handheld mobile phone, now known as a cell phone, was introduced in 1983.
News updates held my interest but another decade passed before I could afford my own cell phone. In 1993 I signed up for cell service and took home a "bag phone" ̶ a bulky collection of equipment in a bag that most folks used in their car.
Over the past 33 years I have upgraded to much less bulky cellphones and to smart phones that are essentially tiny computers.
Alas, like most everything in life, cell phones wear out and in recent weeks Julie's and my phones were showing signs of age... just like me.
Most cellphone carriers will "give" you a phone for signing up for their service or for having been a customer for an adequate period of time.
A text from our longtime carrier advised that we were due for new equipment up to a determined value so on a recent Saturday Julie and I stopped by a company store. Sure enough, we had our choice of two models of new phones.
Having spent time researching new phones the decision was relatively easy and the young salesman began setting up our new phones. This took some time but we walked out of the store with fully activated new cell phones. Or so we thought.
When we were back home we discovered that the ringers on our new phones wouldn't ring. With three-decades of cellphone experience I thought this would be an easy fix. It wasn't. I even went online to seek a fix. No success.
It was still early in the afternoon so we went back to the phone store where the young salesman adeptly touched a few buttons and swiped a few virtual toggles to activate the ringers on our new phones. Over the weekend we tinkered with the phones and their new high-tech features.
On Monday I attempted to connect the new phone to my car's Android Auto feature which provides GPS, provides hands-free service and allows a connection to YouTube music. I have done this several times before but this time was unsuccessful.
Tuesday morning I was waiting for service on my car when I attempted to call Julie and the call wouldn't go through. Nor would the new phone send or receive text messages or emails.
On the way home I stopped by the phone store again. A pleasant young man spent a half hour touching buttons and swiping toggles and now my phone works normally and it connects to my car.
On Wednesday I discovered the voice mail feature wasn't working. It took another half hour to figure that one out but this time I did it!
I have been tinkering with electronics and related technologies since I was a kid. This week, however, I decided that technology has surpassed my working understanding of cellphones. I surely don't want to go back to bag phones but I now understand why there are ads in the AARP magazine promoting simple flip phones. Hopefully, in a few months I may be closer to understanding these phones a little better.
Some 60 years ago motion picture and television actor Walter Brennan recorded a recitation record called "Life Gets Tee-Jus (Tedious,) Don't It?"
Yes, Walter, it does.
(Arvid Huisman can be contacted at huismaniowa@gmail.com. ©2026 by Huisman Communications.)