Posted on 09/03/2023 11:43:00 AM PDT by DallasBiff
Some elementary school kids don’t even know what a landline is. Take a trip down memory lane and remember the type of phone you used to use.
(Excerpt) Read more at rd.com ...
My parents RENTED their rotary phone from Bell of Pennsylvania from 1959 until they moved to another house in 2000.
My father was standing by the “new” phone outlet (with the same old rotary phone with the four bare wires in hand from the old house) that has a snap-in end and asks how he’s supposed to shove those four wires in the “new” outlet.
We bought him a phone, clipped it in and when he hears the dial tone he asks “is that legal?”
Yep....
That looks like the phone we had when I was a kid in the ‘60s. Do you remember the phones that were out for a while in the early ‘80s that had push buttons but still worked as rotary phones? You’d push 7, say, and it would make seven little clicks like rotary phones did. They didn’t work for any of the touch-tone things, either.
When I was about knee high to a grasshopper we lived on a farm in the country in the wilds of southeast Nebraska and we had a 12 party line. The phone was an oak box that hung on the wall and had a mouthpiece on a pivot and an ear piece on a cord. It had a crank a magneto and 2 big dry cell batteries. To make a call on your local line you cranked a certain combination of long and short rings. To call anywhere else you rang for the operator. This was called “getting central” Folks used to listen in or chat at the same time. The more folks on the line the lower the signal level. This led to folks saying things like, “Hang up Myrtle I’m trying to get central.” In about 1955 we got a rotary phone. I remember phone numbers that began with 2 numbers. I also remember when if you were on the same exchange you could just dial the last 4 numbers. You still had to go through an operator for long distance. That went out when DDD Direct Distance Dialing came in. IN the 80’s in Alaska if you were not in town a 4 party line was the best you could get. Eventually private lines came in but if you wanted to call home to the folks on an important holiday you had to be prepared to dial 20 or 30 times before you could get connected on a circuit to the lower 48. Even local calling was referred to as “25 cents a chance.”
I knew a girl in college who was from a very small town in SW Oregon. It was the last place in the U.S. that had four-digit phone numbers. That was around 1976.
Yup, and on a phone “0” isn’t “0”, it’s “10”.
Ten little clicks after dialing zero, that’s right.
Just kidding.... But we did have a couple of them hanging on the walls as decor.
But our working phone for years was that black Western Electric rotary dial that was pictured several times up thread.
What were the longs and shorts?
Oh no....Just my daughters telephone number in case I get lost. lol
My aunt actually had one of these. This is maybe 70 years ago. I remember one ring for her...two for the other party.
Do you now?
I bet if you call ORegon 03143, you won't get her...
The phone included a separate little writing desk that attached to the wall below the phone with a little flip-up lid to store memo paper and pens. It was really handy.
"Maude, I KNOW you're listening. Get off the line!" (reminiscent of my grandparents party line)
Rotary phone and a two party line. If you picked up the phone and someone else was talking you just hung up and waited 10 minutes. 😉
The coiled and tangled cord on that wall Princess phone is a nice authentic touch. They ALWAYS did that.
“What were the longs and shorts”
If it rang: riiinng riiinng ring, that’s two longs and a short, and you answered it.
If it rang: ring riinng ring, that’s a short, a long, and a short , and you didn’t answer it. That was for Mabel Green down the road.
I think there were four families on the party line. All houses heard all the rings, and you had to know your specific code.
Don’t answer Mabel’s phone, you might hear stuff you shouldn’t know. (Of course, picking up your receiver very quietly and you could listen in - LOL!)
Party line. Two longs and a short.
Mrs. Oleson always listened in when she ran the town switchboard.
I miss the office phones from the 90s. We would remove a co-worker’s voice/speaker box from the phone’s receiver and hide it in one of their drawers.
It made for a really fun prank. I had it pulled on me a couple of times too.
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