Was just talking to a congregation member re. telephones. The drama group did a production of Bells Are Ringing in the fall & he picked up one of the old phones they'd left sitting around. He said a friend of his has one of these old round dial phones. There was a kid at his house who wanted to use the phone to call his mother...but the kid couldn't figure out how to use the phone. "Where's all the buttons?" Said he.
I said to the guy, I guess it would be similar to us & how we'd view those old crank phones.
He just laughed & said they still had one when he was a kid. Their exchange had 3 numbers & the phone operator was named Ruby. If you needed anything, all you had to do was pick up the phone & ask Ruby. She'd even tell you about Mrs Smith who just walked by the window & therefore wouldn't be home for another 10 minutes or so.
How times have changed!
“I am innocent. I leave it to my counsel to speak for me.”
—Lizzie A. Borden, June 20, 1893
I remember the crank telephones used between hunting camps when I was a kid. Five camps were involved and each had between one and five bells as their particular ring. They had telephone lines strung between the camps, quite a distance in fact, and the system was powered by dry cell batteries if I remember correctly. If you wanted to call camp #3, you would crank a couple of turns, wait, crank again, wait, crank again, then wait for the other end to pick up.
To do is to be. ~Socrates
To be is to do. ~Kant
Do be do be do. ~Sinatra
I just spent a little time doing an internet search & came across sentences such as: The rotary dial telephone had all the numbers arranged in a circle...
Egads! I'm a fogey!
Hehehehe...
“I am innocent. I leave it to my counsel to speak for me.”
—Lizzie A. Borden, June 20, 1893
Isn't that the type of telephone that had sort of a geared or weighted dial? I remember those used to darn near take the end of your finger off if you dialed a bit over enthusiastically! Good finger nail trimmer!
To do is to be. ~Socrates
To be is to do. ~Kant
Do be do be do. ~Sinatra
OMG, Tina-Kate, my parents had a crank telephone that looked exactly like this one! Being we lived in the country, we were on a party line, which meant you had to wait until the line was clear if someone else was on it. Once the line was clear it was just as Jeff said, you gave it a couple of cranks, waited, cranked again, waited, cranked again, then waited for the person you were calling to pick up.
I also remember the rotary dial telephone. I agree with Jeff, they were very rough on the fingers!
In remembrance of my beloved son: "Vaya Con Dios" (Spanish for: "Go with God"), by Anne Murray ( https://tinyurl.com/y8nvqqx9 ) “God has you in heaven, but I have you in my heart.” ~ TobyMac (https://tinyurl.com/rakc5nd )
While visiting the elderly spinster aunts of a friend, in the wilds of New Hampshire in the early 1970's we were treated to some hot cocoa in the kitchen one cold night.
They had that old phone on the wall. It rang! We all flipped out because it was not hooked up! No one would touch it after that- and no one answered it either.
I will always think of those types as *haunted phones!*
I like your photos, especially the black shinny 302 telephone. This is what I did for a living. I worked on many of those 302 sets. There were very few sitll around when I was employed, most in small towns like Westport, Assonet, and even Fairhaven.
I also worked on many 4 party lines. My Old friend Leo remembers 8, 16 and 32 party lines.
When I was a kid we had a 4 party line. With four kids in the family using the phone, we were always at odds with the other parties. Sometimes someone would leave their phone off the hook and no one on the line could use theirs.
Many times I went out on a call to warn people about it. If they were not home or would not answer the door, we would disconnect them. More times then once did I drive up the road and see the customer running up the road after me in the rearview mirror.
Tina-Kate @ Tue Jan 15, 2008 9:56 am wrote:Remember "telephone dialers"? (Short, thick metal or plastic sticks & you could use them to save your fingers).
I grew up in this small city. Some people had party lines as they were cheaper than a private line. Out in the country it was all party lines.
O Kat...it's too bad no one picked up that ringing phone to find out who was calling!
I remember those!! They had a small ball on the end...my mother used to keep one next to the phone so she could dial a number without breaking a nail!
My parents had a black desk phone, a yellow wall phone in the kitchen, and a brand new light blue Princess phone...that lit up when you picked up the receiver...at least the dial lit up.
Several years ago, my boys found a black dial phone in a thrift shop and paid $5 for it...and the thing still works. It's very heavy. Right now it's stored, but they used it until they went off to college/military. They were facinated by it. Apparently, whomever gets back home first will get the phone. One of them is in Iraq, the other is in Scotland.
I think I would have HAD to answer the ringing phone....that's just crazy. And it wasn't even plugged in....WOW!
