Forty-one years ago this month Martin Cooper made a call on a brick cellular phone. Not only did he make history (and millions) with this incredible invention, he also changed the world of communications as we knew it.
In 1973, while he walked around town chatting it up on his cellular phone, I was busy pulling around my Fisher Price chatter phone.
Fast forward to this month and I’m sitting in my front room with Sleepless and Ice Cream Man, each of us on our cellular phones – texting, watching videos, Googling or who knows what.
Ice Cream Man eventually fell asleep, as he often does, and Sleepless and I continued chatting while surfing the world wide web on our mobile devices.
All of a sudden, Sleepless got a shocked look on her face. “What is it?” I asked. “I’m getting a call,” she said and turned her phone toward me as if displaying a rare, foreign object. “Wow,” I said and asked, “First time?” “I never get calls,” she said, then respectfully declined the incoming call.
I’m not sure who was calling her or whether or not their call was urgent, but I hope it wasn’t somebody who was kicking off an amazing new invention.
Can you imagine if Joel Engel hadn’t answered his phone on April 3, 1973? Thank goodness he did and, more importantly, since they were rivals, thank goodness caller ID had not yet been invented.