My dad is the reason why you have a cellphone
CELL the World! [tm]
I want to thank
for sending me a message here on SubStack - asking why I love to say, “My dad is the reason why you have a cellphone.”And today’s SubStack is telling my version of this story.
I have previously talked about my dad loving the Dick Tracy cartoon, created, drawn and written by Chester Gould. In the cartoon, Dick Tracy is a police officer who talks with his boss on his two-way wrist radio. In today’s terminology, it looks like an Apple Watch that has Zoom on it. Tracy can see his boss’s face as they talk back and forth on this two-way wrist radio.
This cartoon inspired many kids of the 50s and beyond to become police officers. It inspired my dad to dream about cellular technology and watch this wonderful technology unfold. Dad talked about it and thought about it and wrote stories about it.
In the late 1980s, (now this is where I get a little fuzzy; hopefully my uncle, who I know reads this, will write a more accurate time line of events in the comments - please?) Dad and his brother (I don’t know if he would be cool about sharing his name or not, so I’m choosing not to) started a publication. It’s been a long time now for me, and I was a kid who only partially paid attention to what their parents were doing at any given time. I was more engrossed with my violin and struggling with schoolwork to really pay attention to years, titles, dates.
But in the 1980s and probably the 1990s, my dad and his brother had a few different publications - newsletter(s), magazines, and probably more than that too. I know Dad wrote a book around this time too. Maybe 2 of them. Maybe his brother edited them? I want to give credit where credit is due, but I don’t know all the details.
I know one of the publications was called something like FutureComm Publications. (Looking at the cover of one of my dad’s books, I see these publication titles: Personal Communications Report, Personal Communications Magazine, and Cellular Radio News.)
And another publication was called “Cellular Sales and Marketing” (CSM). CSM was a newsletter. My uncle (Dad’s brother) got into the paging business (remember pagers? People still have them!) and my dad liked the cellular business. So at some point they split up the company they had built together and went their own separate ways.
Meanwhile, somewhere in there, Dad wrote books about Cellular Telephones. Some of the titles are: “Cellular Telephones: A Layman’s Guide,” “You Can Afford a Car Telephone!” And “The Portable Office: How to Take Your Office on the Road Now & For the Future.” He also wrote “How to Travel Through Time,” though I only just released that on June 1, 2024.
Dad went to all the Consumer Electronics shows and learned everything he could from the people who made the technology. He wrote information about the cellular telephones for the “Academic American” encyclopedia. He wrote a blurb about it in a National Geographic hardback book for kids - explaining the cellular towers.
He must have called all kinds of publications and media places to market himself as a Cellular guru. He started getting phone calls on his 800 number: 1-800-CAR-CALL*
Dad started appearing in all the newspapers, TV news shows, radio broadcasts, and was constantly interviewed and talking about cellular radio (later called Cellular Telephones or shortened to Carphones, and even later changed again to Cellphones - once they no longer had to be tied to a car!).
The interesting thing, at the time, was that carphones were just for rich people. Only people like Donald Trump had a cellphone. Well, we did too, because Dad always got the latest tech from the cell companies, so he could write about it in his newsletter and talk about it. Maybe this makes my dad one of the original Influencers. 😆
“Everyone” he met would say, “why do I need a carphone? There’s a pay phone on every corner!” Dad had an answer for all the objections to why people didn’t want a cellphone.
He came up with a list of the top 10 arguments people had against getting a cellphone, and he mailed it to all the cellular companies that were trying to sell these things.
Dad’s biggest break in the industry, that really cemented him as an industry leader was when he was interviewed by USA Today. Dad made one comment somewhere in the interview - a throw away comment saying that “by the end of this year, cellphones will cost less than $1,000.” USA Today put it in the paper.
Cellular Industry folks were FURIOUS at my dad for making this comment. I mean, furious. Dad later said, “I sweated a LOT that year.”
But then, just before Christmas, a guy (Crazy Eddy? I used to remember his name, but it’s so long ago now, that I have forgotten) came out with cellphones for $999. USA Today ran THAT headline too. And mentioned that my dad had correctly predicted it.
After that, anyone who wanted to sell cellphones called my dad and/or subscribed to his newsletter: “Cellular Sales and Marketing.” Dad trademarked “CELL the World!” I remember the cool day when Mrs. Heath of Heath Candybars called my dad and talked with him about what cellphone she should get. Dad probably talked to her for 45 minutes to an hour. About a month later, she sent us fancy, boxed Heath chocolates. I had no idea that the Heathbar company made fancy boxed chocolates for gifting! Those were good. We couldn’t eat them all, so Dad gave away a bunch of them as gifts.
I remember one of the objections was “don’t they give you cancer, holding that phone up next to your brain?” Dad had the scientific studies to back up the answer: “No.”
My dad taught the industry how to sell this technology that “no one” wanted. He made suggestions about ads that should and shouldn’t run and talked about all the new things coming up like new phones, new antennas, new, better towers, all kinds of things. I remember being floored that a cellphone antenna could now go *inside* a building. And also floored when I learned that cellphone towers could now look like trees - or at least blend in better with a tree line. That was pretty cool.
I got my first cellphone, for real, in 1999. I was engaged to a man and he bought us both cellphones. Like my dad taught me all those years before, we chose our phone numbers - simple numbers, easy to remember.
Dad got early onset Parkinson’s Disease some time in the 90s. I’m not exactly sure when. But he went downhill rather fast due to his religious belief system that eschewed medical care. While he had previously been on the go go go, working and typing and producing content for all kinds of publications, he suddenly couldn’t even load the dishwasher due to Parkinson’s Disease. He did eventually go to a doctor and I am so grateful he did. He became able to again load the dishwasher once he got on medicine. We got my dad back a little for a while. Parkinson’s complications - namely - pneumonia and a bad head bump from falling were things he just couldn’t fight anymore just after turning 69 in 2014. I miss him every day. He was my anchor.
At his memorial service, I asked everyone who had one, to please hold up their cellphones. They all obliged me. I shared one of his cellular books there and said to them that my dad was the reason why they all had a cellphone. And it rang so true for me in that moment, that I have been saying it ever since. My dad taught the companies how to sell them. CELL the World! [tm]
I want the world to remember my dad because he was a pretty cool guy. So I write about him quite a fair amount in this newsletter. And I’m working on digitizing his various writings so they can be archived however things get archived in the future. Dad wanted a microfiche machine towards the end of his career - he knew he had gobs he had written (along with gobs of his amazing photographs), and it was too much to store in his office. He didn’t get a microfiche machine, thank goodness, I still have it all on paper, so I type it all up as I am able to. I also have works I want to write of my own, and I know he wouldn’t want me spending the rest of my life only archiving his works. So I try to strike the balance I can.
Thank you for reading about my dad. I still have so much more to say on this particular topic, but this newsletter is probably longer than is quick to read / long enough.
How to Travel Through Time is available here.
*Coincidentally, the Baltimore Orioles had 1-800-BASEBAL as their phone number. And people consistently called “1-800-BAS-BALL” which is the same numbers as “CAR CALL,” so dad got thousands and thousands of wrong calls for years. It was a constant source of frustration for him. But he loved having his phone number and even refused to sell it when someone came knocking, trying to buy it.
I have heard this story- I still love it! Typing this on my….you guessed it….ny cellphone! 😉🥰
So interesting! My sister is rich and I remember using her first cell phone plugged into her car. I called my children just to say- I’m calling you from a car phone. I didn’t even know it was a “cell” phone.