It is 2026 and I do not know one person that does not have a phone. Most everyone I know runs their lives and businesses from their phone, using it as a hub of information, entertainment and communication with family, social connections and the global society we are part of.
Recently, I began to remember how we used to communicate on the island, (if you had a land line), and proper uses of the phone that were taught to us very young.
I remember being in school and telling my teacher that my island phone number only had 5 digits and she was skeptical. She made it into a project for us to ask Ohio Bell to send a letter of description and ask for an explanation to the class of why they had 7 numbers, and some rural areas (we didn’t know what that word meant) only had 5. We all learned something from that lesson.
Our phone rang a lot. My parents provided rides to visitors and island families and also would do tours for people that made arrangements.
We were taught to say the name of the business “Island taxi, ‘this is Patti, who am I speaking with?”
The other end would respond and I was the filter to see who and what was the subject. Playing secretary, I believe they called it.
“This is Ray Burgniese from University of Toledo; there are a few of us that would like a tour of the island next Saturday if available. We want to see the Glacier Grooves.”
I was not old enough to keep the calendar, so my next job was to tell dad he had a call.
“Who is on the other end?” Jay would ask, as I had the receiver as big as my head pressed to my oily face.
He would take the phone and I would wait for him to repeat information that would be needed.
“What can we do for each other?” He would begin the conversation with one of my favorite lines, “this is Jay Johnson on Kelley’s island.” Name, organization, time of pick up and general interest in the island to tailor a narration for the group. He met people from all over, and had the time of his life.
Before dad got on the ferry on Sundays, our phone was used for Grandma Mona phone calls. She was my dad’s mom that came up from Arizona after Ruth died. She was good at so many things: she knew how to combat poison ivy, she taught us kids about nature and all its creations, and collected rocks like it was her part time job. Her other job was watching island kids and keeping a house afloat after her Daughter-in-Law’s mom died suddenly and there was a lot of space and grief in the house for her to hold each summer.
By the 1980s we all had 7 digits. 746-2360 was the Kelleys Island Chamber of Commerce. Businesses volunteered for 2-hour shifts to answer the phone, check messages, document the caller’s number and name, and send them a Fun Finder; which was a brochure that was the marketing arm of this island getaway. In the shack we had a master list of members and their services so that we could refer callers to the desired business.
Being part of the last year of the Boomer generation (1963-64), and this community and others, Doug and I have managed businesses through a five-digit phone number, pagers, manual color-coded mailing systems,and point-of-sale systems that seemed incredibly advanced because they were wireless. I have watched technology evolve at a pace that sometimes feels impossible to keep up with. I still like to imagine young people finding time connected to nature, with a rhythm that is not completely dependent on a phone. As another Jayism reminds me, “Life comes at you fast.”
And yet, I have also seen how technology, in the right hands, becomes more than convenience. Watching our EMS squad coordinate people, space, and resources on this complex island reminds me that technology can be life itself when guided by compassionate humans with stewardship as the mission.
I am not going to recount the recent storms; the news stations did that well. But I believe Mother Nature showed us all what we needed to see: our infrastructure matters, our public services matter, our leadership matters, and protecting this environment matters.
That is a lot for a little island that once only had five-digit phone numbers.
But it is the island way—to adapt, to care for one another, and to move through the storms together.
