My first telephone memories were of a party line at my family's Ohio farmhouse. When I was four or five years old, I sometimes picked up the phone to talk to the "nice ladies" chatting about whatever. Sometimes they told me to hang up, and sometimes they laughed and let me talk.

Now I don't even have a landline. I don't really see the point, and I've carried my phone number with me for so long that the area code has nothing to do with where I live anymore.

But even back in the day when I lived in Manhattan and Montreal, you needed an area code for many local calls.

Remember when long distance was expensive enough that you paused before you decided to call family out of town?

I think kids really can't imagine that anymore.