If you are of a certain age, the title of this column brings back memories of the first time you used a computer to access the internet. “You Got Mail” was the phrase you heard when your dial-up service opened the site known as America Online or simply AOL. In fact, when AOL began, many people thought that they were the internet.

Most of us rushed to stores like Blockbuster and Tower Records to get the free discs that you popped into your computer to load AOL to your system. Once the download was complete you connected your landline and began the process of exploring AOL. To this day, for those of us who began exploring the internet, it is impossible to forget the screeching, grinding noises that your computer made while attempting to “dial up” the internet. If you want to revisit your youth or if you are too young to remember it, copy and paste this or carefully type https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QDS4B0mM-ew in a new URL window. If the link does not work, connect to You Tube and search “dial-up sounds.”

The dial-up indicated two things. First, if successful you made it onto the internet. Secondly, as you explored the world, nobody could phone you because your land line was busy with AOL.

Dial-up was introduced in the 1980’s and connected you to the internet using your home’s landline. That annoying screeching noise began to disappear in the 1990’s when commercial broadband, which did not use a landline began to take over. Although today, the majority of users use broadband, some remote rural areas still use dial-up. For example, sections of Maine and Georgia have a higher percentage of dial-up users than anywhere else in the United States.

As the numbers of users of AOL rapidly expanded, the company began adding other links to expand the information available to their users. They developed a home page where you could explore topics such as entertainment news, sports and computing.

In 1996, AOL introduced a system that allowed its participants to instantly communicate with others online. They offered an online “Buddy List” chat. It allowed users to add their “Buddy” to chat rooms such as family, co-workers and new users. Once in a room, anybody could join in chat. Since there were multiple chats on several topics, it was often confusing to follow a conversation. 

America Online really took off with the growth of email. Users could register their own email address and begin sending and receiving messages from friends, family and co-workers. Unfortunately, it also opened the floodgates for unsolicited advertisers to clog up your email list.

The CEO of AOL, Steve Case, wanted to give his company a unique way of telling its customers that they have received an email. He decided to try using a person to somehow announce an email delivery. One of his customer service representatives, Karen Edwards, told him that her husband had done some radio commercials and voice-overs. 

Case wrote down a few suggestions and asked if her husband could do a demo. That night, her husband Elwood recorded a few lines.

The next day, she played Elwood’s recordings and Case immediately knew he had found the welcoming human voice his company desired. Within a month AOL mailed millions of upgraded software each with Elwood saying for the first time, “Welcome. You’ve Got Mail.”

Like many of my readers, I have a few email accounts. I still have my AOL address but have added others over the years for work and correspondence. For example, I have a dedicated one at the top of my column so my readers can be in contact with me. Feel free to do so.

The problem is that over the years I have accumulated a ridiculous number of stored emails. For example, my AOL list has over eight thousand stored emails! Many of them unread or if read, I decided to keep it “as new.” 

Maybe I should develop a system where I can highlight an email so that if unread after ten days, it automatically transfers to a “waiting room.” At that point, seeing that I have no need to read them, I can open the “waiting room” and hear my recorded voice saying “You Got Too Much Mail” before I delete them all with one click.

Hudson Cooper is a resident of Sullivan County, a writer, comedian and actor.