In the day of almost universal cell phone use you might find this hard to believe but, the leading paging company in America says that they still have at least 800,000 pagers in use across the United States.  That’s down almost 90% since 2004 when the company reported 6.6 million pagers in use, but still, in my opinion, a high number.  I’m guessing not many funeral directors under the age of 45 ever carried around a “pager”.

 

But, if you were like me and a funeral director in the 1980’s and 1990’s you got used to a pager being clipped to your belt any time you were on call.  For those of you who don’t understand what we are talking about  —  a pager gave off a beeping sound triggered by a phone call that alerted the user that they were needed.  Generally, the funeral director would then call his funeral home or answering service to see what the alert was for.

 

According to some research that I did, pagers were invented in 1921 and refined into a practical device in the 1960’s.  Until that time, in the funeral home business, a funeral director had to be almost tethered to the funeral home phone in order to receive First Calls.  As hard as it may be for young funeral directors to understand, pagers gave funeral directors a chance to have a social life and be away from the funeral home while on call.

 

As you know now the pager business has been almost completely replaced by cell phones.  But according to this article in the Wall Street Journal titled, “What the beep?  Die-hards refuse to let go of their pagers“, there is a group of pager believers and users who prefer the one-way paging system over the cell-phone notification system.

 

In the article one doctor makes this comment about why pagers work for him in the hospital setting, “when he gets a message on his phone, it’s awkward to answer it, he says. If he’s looking at the phone, he worries patients might wonder what he’s paying attention to while with a pager, it’s obvious it’s work”.

 

Another physician who continues to use a one-way pager states that “She likes the simplicity of the one-way communication, which allows her to process the page before responding and gives her a measure of control”.

 

The article also states that we may well see the comeback of pagers as an “emergency system” for hospitals, utility companies, and the like.  Turns out that if “cell service” is down these vital institutions cannot notify their employees via cell phones. However, pagers can be land line operated and activated and, in a disaster such as earthquakes, tornadoes, and hurricanes when cell towers go down, they can still be useful.  That situation is giving rise to the growing idea of issuing pagers to emergency personnel as a back-up as may be needed.

 

Funeral Director Daily:  I remember the “pager” very well.  In the 1980’s and 1990’s it gave me the freedom as a young, single funeral director to spend time with my friends while on call.  I can remember getting to go to movies and sporting events with my friends where, without a pager, I would have been unreachable and been unable to participate in the activity.

 

I also remember the first cellular phone that I was able to use.  We leased what was known as a “Brick cell-phone” for the funeral home and the director on call could take it with them when they were on call.  The “Brick”, so called that because it was about the size of a brick was the first two-way communication our funeral home ever used.  It was leased from an eventual part of Verizon, Rural Cellular Corporation, which was founded in 1990.  I’m guessing we first got that “Brick” in the early 1990’s.

 

What the “Brick” did for me was allow me to go golfing.  I could throw it in my golf bag and had two-way communication on the golf course.  That was really not possible with a one-way pager because, on the golf course, I could be quite a ways away from a land-line phone to use to phone and find out why I was paged. . . The “Brick” solved that problem.

 

What’s the old saying? . . . .We’ve came a long way, baby!!!

 

More news from the world of Death Care:

• Human Composting:  The rising interest in natural burial.  CBS News
• Cody-White has new managing partner.  Milford-Orange Times (CT)
• Cody-White Funeral Home website
• What to know about tax deductibility of funeral expenses.  CPA Practice Advisor
• Nevada becomes 7th state to legalize Natural Organic Reduction.  PR Newswire
• Ivy League researcher disgusted wife’s remains may have been sold through Harvard morgue scandal.  NY Post (NY)

 

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