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Online now: 4 members: Birdman5, L.L., TABLE SETTER 11, softball4b; 98 anonymousDiscussion: An Old(er) Post for Southpaw
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| Jan. 8, 2015 Nancy Allen Men's 55 1438 posts | An Old(er) Post for Southpaw Southpaw, I will hope this thread does not become a hijack victim, but I had something happen today that made me think of what you were trying to say. So today is Elvis' 80th birthday, and the radio is playing Return to Sender for it. I explained to my older friend (59) that the "no such zone" was because we used to have postal zones before we had zip codes. Now we lived in Indy, and ours was 20 (now 46220), but he grew up in rural Indiana which may have made the difference of why he had never heard of that. Of course the conversation got into when the first 2 digits of a phone number were shown as letters (ours was TI9) and party lines. Coachie remembered when one of the main streets in Indy (Washington) was all brick, and when there was a cable car running on it. He also remembered pigeon shoots on the Circle downtown. He had about a decade on me though. I would love to see some of our technical wizard kids in a room with a dial telephone and a TV with no remote control just to see what they do. |
| Jan. 8, 2015 BruceinGa Men's 70 3233 posts | I worked for the "phone" company for 43 years before retiring in 2011. I was there before touchtone, solid state, cordless, wireless etc. I was fortunate to be in one of the first computer groups in AT&T but Unix and DOS is of little help to us now days. I watch with much enjoyment when my 3 year old grand daughter try to use a desk phone. |
| Jan. 8, 2015 hemi racer Men's 65 237 posts | You guys are bring back old memoirs. I remember when our phone number was 3529, then cam NEwton8-3529. The tire and service center I ran for some 38 years opened in 1938 with a phone number of 414. Then 2414 and of course now 638-2414. |
| Jan. 9, 2015 batter4u Men's 65 82 posts | Hate to date myself but our first phone hung on the wall, had a crank on the side and 2 little bells on the front. there were 10 families on the same line and our ring was 2 longs and 2 shorts and everyone knew what was happening in the community. |
| Jan. 9, 2015 hemi racer Men's 65 237 posts | AHHH!!! Yes, party lines. We where fortunate though by having only three on ours. What a wonderful past time listening to your neighbors conversations. Had to be real careful picking up the receiver though or they would hear you. I'm sure half our readers have no idea what we're talking about. |
| Jan. 11, 2015 Webbie25 Men's 70 2413 posts | My Grandparents had a party line and their ring was a long and a short. I remember my Grandmother would be talking and then stop and say "Edna, I hear you breathing!! Hang up the phone. Hang it up!" Now it's the government listening! LOL Our number in Ann Arbor was NOrmandy 32217. We also had a very cranky old lady across the street that used to get mad if we kids ran on her lawn and she would call and not say anything at all hours of the night. Those were the days. |
| Jan. 11, 2015 BruceinGa Men's 70 3233 posts | My grandparents owned a small independent telephone company in central Illinois where I worked when I was 16. It was then that they had just removed the wooden crank phones and updated to dial phones. A few years before I remember seeing the operator working at the cord board in my grandfather's office. Needless to say they had a private line. A much simpler time. |
| Jan. 11, 2015 southpaw Men's 70 1077 posts | Hey Nancy, been out of pocket the last few days. Enjoyed all these memories for sure; thanks guys. 1955 was a great year at our house--indoor plumbing and our first T.V.!! |
| Jan. 12, 2015 Webbie25 Men's 70 2413 posts | My grandparents lived between Petoskey and Harbor Springs, Michigan, and you talk about cold in the winter. And they had no indoor plumbing, just an outhouse. They actually had pee pots in the house for nights in the winter. And the upstairs had no heating. They would take a big rock and heat it in the oven, put it at the foot of the bed wrapped in quilts, bury us kids under about 6 more quilts and we would be soooooo warm. And it would be near 20 degrees in the house. And the Lake Effect snows there were awesome and unexpected because they did not know how to predict them. |
| Jan. 12, 2015 hemi racer Men's 65 237 posts | Here in S.C. we didn't have quite the clod temperatures as you, but we had some of the same remedies on how to stay warm. We used an iron off the woodstove to keep our feet warm, then came along electric irons after a while. My grandkids have NO concept of what hard times are. |
