I remember my first call on a cell phone with a strange vividness. One of those moments in life that sears itself into your mind — you remember the very instant, the weather, the pitch of blue in the sky, smells around you.
I had ridden my BMX bicycle (a Haro Group 1) to Magic Video just over my town’s border in Manchester, Connecticut. This was back in 1993 and I had just become, or was about to become a teenager, and the moving culture of our world was still meted out by pony tailed men in independent video shops. [1] They were places of gathering for the community. I’d spend hours (much to the chagrin of everyone who worked there) everyday during summer break asking about Eraserhead or Akira or ogling laser disks, and seeing a half dozen people you knew throughout the day was not uncommon. As I was about to leave, my neighbor Tom came in to return some videos. He owned a truck. He said he’d give me a ride home. We threw my bike in back and I hopped in.
The ride was short — maybe six minutes. We crested a hill next to Shop Rite, lifting us over highway 384, and he said: Check this out. From the floor he pulled up a kind of soft black nylon case. Open it, he said. I did and inside was a phone. A phone! I knew immediately what kind of phone it was: A Cellular Telephone. I was in maximum geek mode back then — spending my weekends studying assembly…
