Sweet post. I used to practice silence more back in my yoga retreat days, and this makes me want to revisit. I was born in 1970, so somewhat similar timeline. We had an answering machine a bit sooner, but I always remember the ritual of walking directly to it as soon as I came home. At the time I didn’t think of it as a particularly sweet part of my day, but now I realize it was, in a subtle way. That was ruined by the much more practical voicemail eventually offered by telephone companies. Sigh :).