Kids today can’t seem to do without friends, or rather, “friending." Constantly connected to one another through their smartphones, Ipads, Facebook or Twitter accounts, they are “in touch” with those they know and those they don’t know.

Elders often look upon this communication phenomenon with amusement, annoyance and sometimes concern. But really, it’s nothing new! Teens have an inherent desire to spend time with other kids their age and to explore new friendships.   

If you were in Dallas in 1959 or the early 1960s you may well remember the “grapevine."

What was the “grapevine”? It was talking through the beeps of the telephone busy signal to meet other kids in other parts of the Dallas-Ft. Worth area.  

Here’s how it worked. You took your old rotary dial phone, likely located in a central part of the home such as the hallway (there because the family probably shared the one telephone), and dialed a number that you knew would be busy. This could be your own number or the number of another person who was “on the grapevine." There was no “call waiting” back then and no answering machine. A telephone number in use went straight to the busy signal. Beep, Beep, Beep!  

Once connected, here’s what you did! Talk through the beeps. “Who (beep) are (beep) you? “Where (beep) do (beep) you (beep) go (beep) to (beep) school?” Get the idea?   

Sort of like Internet dating, once you had established that you might like to know someone better, you could get their name and phone number (through the beeps), hang up from the “grapevine” and have a one-on-one conversation. Who would make the call and who would stand by to receive the call had also been determined through the beeps. Since some things never change, it was most likely the boy who made the call and the girl who stood by.

This probably sounds antiquated and elementary compared to today’s technology, but Dallas teens spent hours on the “grapevine." The telephone company initially said it couldn’t be done. Sure enough, it could be done, and it was being done.   

“This has to stop,” said the phone company. “These kids are tying up the phone lines.”

Ma Bell was probably no more able to stop it than were Ma and Pa at home. Advanced technology just came along, and new social media took the place of the "grapevine."

To learn more about this phenomenon, check out this column by rotary phone blogger, Dennis Markham. 

If you are interested in knowing more about telephone communication thorough the ages, tour and talk with Don Capehart, owner of the Capehart Telephone Museum on South Ninth Street in Corsicana, Texas.