One of the reasons I love to write is because it allows me to get into my own virtual BTTF DeLorean and travel Back in Time (cue: the Huey Lewis song). I’ve been working on a document for a few years now, a journal of sorts that I call My Narrative Timeline. I use questions to prompt me to think about people, places and situations in my past so that I can explore them for all they’re worth. One thing that never fails to surprise me is that I always wind up writing more than I can think about the topic in my head. Writing helps me go so much further and remember so much more. It’s like a secret ingredient to a recipe: just add ink.

An easy place to start with time travel is with artifacts. The memoirist Ian Frazier said, “Objects suggest narrative.” Sometimes we can see a thing and realize that there’s a story or even just a whole slew of associations or memories that you have made in your brain with that particular thing.

A couple of Christmases ago, I bought Rick the first three seasons of Seinfeld on DVD. I finally decided that I EVEN love my husband enough to watch through the whole sordid series with him starting with its less-than-polished beginnings. (BTW – all 180 episodes or Seinfeld are set to hit Netflix on October 1 this year – you’re welcome!) Seinfeld has been described as “a show about nothing – often focusing on the minutiae of daily life.” (I haven’t decided yet if I dislike Elaine or George more – usually I vacillate from episode to episode.)

That being said, the creators of the show, Jerry Seinfeld and Larry David, were pretty genius in creating a show about nothing because nothing translates into Endless Possibilities for subject matter. What I find fascinating, in creating essentially a character-driven show, they’ve simultaneously put together a unique time capsule that highlights objects and artifacts, like giant shoulder pads, diner booths and yes, telephones.

It seems in every episode, Jerry makes or answers a phone call. The show launched in 1989, which was essentially before cell phones and even before cordless phones were a regular household thing. I get a real kick out of watching Jerry dial his rotary phone, willing him not to make a mistake, because – you know – you’d have to hang up and try all over again. (Jerry is one of the characters I actually like, at least more than George and Elaine, but sometimes not as much as Kramer.) When he is talking on the phone, he often hooks his index and middle fingers into the little shelf under the receiver cradle and walks around his apartment dragging 50 feet of telephone wire with him which keeps him securely plugged into the telephone jack in the wall – because there was no magic back then. When I was a kid, I used to think it was a LUXURY to be able to walk around with a phone like that, especially since our phone on the farm was stuck securely to the wall. My brother, however, was a telephone installer and had access to miles of this phone line stuff and so I recall that the phone in my parents’ next house could be walked around the kitchen and living room à la Jerry Seinfeld. I could even MOVE THE PHONE to plug into a jack in a bedroom or in the basement if I really craved privacy. Which didn’t last long because inevitably someone yelled, “Get off the phone!” – and not because you were using too much data.

In a recent episode we watched (Season Three: The Alternate Side), Jerry is using a new phone: a cordless one, albeit the size of a compact car with an antenna to match. It reminded me of this picture of me and Rick, circa 1990:

Yep, there it is, behind us on the fridge, a giant cordless phone! And talk about Time Travel! A classic alarm clock with flippy-numbers! Rick with a long hair and a perm! Me drinking a beer!

Of course, I’ve barely started on the whole phone thing. Remember “party lines” – when you had to SHARE A PHONE LINE WITH ONE OR TWO OF YOUR RURAL NEIGHBORS? Crazy and hard to explain to the young folks, but it was kind of like putting the whole neighborhood on speakerphone. And last week, when I was at my friend’s dad’s house – she found some really old telephone lists in his cupboards with phone numbers with only two digits! I don’t quite remember that, but I do remember only having to dial only 7 numbers instead of 10. And now we don’t even have to memorize phone numbers – it’s all there at the press of a “button” on our pants computer.

Before you know it, I’ll be waxing poetic about flip-phones and Blackberries. Because eventually everything new becomes old and is therefore fodder for the pen. I don’t want to forget and it’s actually fun to remember, so I will keep writing about such silly old things as telephones and time travel.