Posted on 03/29/2021 11:36:20 AM PDT by OneVike
SNL and Miss Ringy-Dingy had a lot to do with changing that.
My two sisters did that for part-time money. Most of the time it was business calls, but on holidays, when people who didn’t usually call long-distance were calling family, they would have a blast.
They would return to the family gathering full of hilarious stories.
“Gimme Tweemont twee-twee-twee-twee-twee.”
Sorry I can’t tell the rest of that joke here.
Is this the party to whom I am speaking? One of the funniest lines ever.
I was the dial O for operator. That was for all long distance, pay phones and emergencies. Oh, and kids.
It was an interesting job, at times fun, at times stressful.
I had a little boy call me once to tell me his grandmother died. He must have been only 3-4. I talked to him while I had a supervisor trace the line and send out the police. Thankfully, it turned out that yes she had died, her funeral was that day and he had been put in the bedroom to take a nap while the adults were in the living room but he just wanted someone to talk to.
I had a businessman call me one time, dead drunk, asking if I could locate his pilot. Since it was a very slow night I did. He sent me a dozen red roses (to my operator number) for which I got in a lot of trouble.
I picked up the pay phones for Agnew State Hospital, a mental hospital and hospital for criminally insane. I used to hate that. A woman there knew if she declared emergency it wouldn’t cost to her place a call so called frequently to be connected with her brother, always declaring emergency.
Interesting job.
flr
You should write an account about that
You were an angel put in place by God to save a life
LOL!............Where my parents lived, there was a small telephone company that had the rights to the whole county. They had one small building, not even as big as a single-wide mobile home, where ONE operator served the entire county. Just like Mayberry, on the Andy Griffith Show, ‘Sarah’ was there for everybody!..................
I'm a James Garner fan, myself. There was also a serious message about alcohol abuse. The soundtrack was so wonderful, as was the cast. I've listened to the soundtrack dozens of times. One of my favorites, from the rather heartbreaking scene when the mother (Ellen Burstyn) shut her patient old husband (James Garner) out of her bedroom:
He was quite a governor. I loved living in Pennsylvania for several decades, even though my roots are southern. My grandmom said we were distantly related to the Pitts and the Potts. (Pittsburgh and Pottstown.)
Verrrrry interrrrrresting. Thanks.
Beautiful touching song.
Alcoholism is a terrible blight. It blinds the alcoholic to the damage they do to those around them, while the one being harmed is always accused by the alcoholic as being the problem.
Love then causes the sober partner to start believing they are not properly handling their drunk spouses problem, so they continually give in. Almost becoming a slave to the alcoholics desires.
The alcoholic then continues down their self destructive path, while the sober one becomes almost self deprecating to the point of hiding the problem form others. Which in time turns to depression, to the point that they lose their own self identity.
Others outside the sphere of knowing the truth, begin wondering what happened to the once happy, outgoing wife/husband married to the alcoholic. Mainly because the sober one has so expertly helped the alcoholic hide their problem from the World. So they never realizing how big of a problem the drinking is, which creates an illusion that the problems of the one who is sober is what drives the other one to drink.
Which is exactly what the alcoholic wants the World to see. Thus so many outside the home never realize how depression brought on by a spouses drinking can destroy the sober partner.
Al-Anon is a great group, but it is more difficult at times for the family of an alcoholic to go to those meetings than it is for an alcoholic to go to Alcohol Anonymous meetings, because the drunk is always creating a situation of fear in the sober one. A fear, not of physical abuse, but a fear of emotional abuse that creates the depression. This, often times, can be more destructive than physical abuse.
Physical injuries can heal complete, but emotional physiological damage can scar for life.
To love one so much that one will abandon their own sanity is hell. Something the alcoholic seldom if ever realizes they have caused.
You would probably also need to clean and lube the dial mechanism (if possible; the more modern AT&T/Western Electric dials are not very repair-able). And you'd want to clean / polish the plastic or bakelite. Maybe replace the handset cord if it's shot (they often are).
If you want to pay for it, you can probably find someone on the net who will do it for you. Or you can do it yourself.
You of course need an analog phone ("landline") connection (cable providers typically sell these to you as part of their package). Note that you'll need a pulse-to-tone adapter to be able to use the dial to place calls; most modern phone HW doesn't understand pulse anymore. I use a pulse-to-tone converter called a "Dialgizmo"; it works fine.
Small phone companies in rural areas used tricky ringers to get phones to work on party lines (so that they could ring just one phone on the line). Those ringers usually won't work on a modern phone system.
Sometimes it's just moving a wire from one terminal to another; sometimes you have to find a plain-jane ("straight-line") replacement ringer.
B4l
I’ve been there. But I did get help and learned how not to be an enabler of the abuser, from Al Anon. It’s a great organization.
Thank you for the information!!
I’ll be going back this week and will grab the phones.
I do have a landline connection so there’s a half-hope they may work.
This is going to be fun!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.