Throwback Thursday: What are some of your telephone memories? #TBT

[Kristján Geir Mathiesen]

Takk everyone for your fun comments!

Have a fabulous Friday!

[Anthony Mesaros]

Back in the day, in my neighborhood, there were locked phone boxes on telephone poles every mile or two and the Police and Fire Department had keys to make calls when needed. Went by the old neighborhood last month and all of those phone boxes are gone, but up in the canyon area there still are a few. Which is a good idea because radio and cell reception is the pits in the canyon areas.

[Ram Kumar Aravindakshan _Adaptavist_]

I remember with the old phones, we could do a reverse charge by calling the operator. :D

This is not doable now with Mobile and Smart Phones.

[Ram Kumar Aravindakshan _Adaptavist_]

  

Telephone Generations

[Lauren Allen]

We didn't get a long cord until the early 90's and it was a game changer!  Although, whenever Mum got a call she would sit on the couch and talk (even if we were trying to watch tv!) and when she finished she would just drop the receiver and leave it there.  

Her logic was that she had no great desire to hear from anyone else and if we wanted to speak to anyone then we could hang up the phone for it to be ready.  😂

[Lauren Allen]

One change I'm really impressed by in Australia is that instead of removing all of the public phone boxes that rarely get used now that most people have devices, they have made all public phones free to call any standard landline or mobile phone numbers across Australia.  

Such a great resource for those in need.  They also set up a Santa hotline via the public phones for the kids over Christmas too. ❤

[ABR]

@Kristján Geir Mathiesen Thanks for taking me back to childhood once more!

Our home was one of the first in our locality to have a telephone connection, immediately we became reluctant celebrity in the neighborhood! People used to come to our home to make their phone calls, running up our phone bills to exorbitant amounts. So Dad had to keep the handset disconnected most of the times and unless it was an emergency, we had to say that the phone service was off!

But the fun things that happened were the wrong numbers and cross connections! Friendships were built on the chance provided by wrong numbers, which became the right connections for a lifetime! I've seen cross connections both build and destroy relationships! Some creeps managed to frighten people who didn't have caller line identification feature in their phones! 

When the cordless came, I was a teenager (very much in love, with my then boyfriend and now husband) and hogged it for long after dinner talks! Much to the silent irritation of my dear Dad (but he never really stopped me, God knows why!) !

Thanks for reminding me of those days! :)

[ABR]

@Ram Kumar Aravindakshan _Adaptavist_ Love the cartoon! Hahaha!

[Amanda Barber]

What a fun post! I was so grateful to have a mom who worked for the phone company because we had a second line when I was young - perfect for calling friends on! :) 

@Holly Scott - that Garfield phone brought back great memories! Plus, my 13yo is obsessed with Garfield stuff lately, so she got a kick out of it, too!

[Andy Gladstone]

My mother was ALWAYS on the phone when we were kids. And it was always her sitting at the kitchen table with the tangled cord extending out 6 feet from the wall mount to where she sat at the table. My mom was social media before it existed - she kept in touch with EVERYONE she was friends or relatives with and had a rolodex on the kitchen counter with everyone's contact information - phone numbers, addresses, birthdays, etc. She probably spent 4-5 hours on the phone with childhood and high school and university friends, close and distant relatives, every day.

Our neighborhood was one where all of the kids would run in and out of each other's houses throughout the day. Our friends were all welcome in our home, and us in theirs. 

And my mom was always there, on the phone.

What I didn't tell you is that my mom grew up in The Bronx and was a bit of a potty-mouth. Her conversations were always peppered with words and phrases I can't publish here. 

Many of our friends found this comical and would like to play on the first floor while waiting for my mom to drop one of her expletive bombs - and the giggling that ensued was something that we can all still remember today.

One of the neighborhood kids started swearing at home and his parents were not too pleased. When they confronted him and asked where he learned such vulgar language, his answer was a matter-of-fact "Mrs. Gladstone". 😳

The power of the telephone. 

[Joanna Mae Natial]

I like to do this

[Stephen_Lugton]

Years ago I was working in forensic investigations and we had an investigation on a remote farm that was in a mobile phone dead spot, so we had to get the ultimate long telephone cord.  A couple of hours after we got there a BT truck turned up and laid down a 2 mile long cable!

[Fabio Racobaldo _Herzum_]

I remember the telephone at my grandparents' house, I was fascinated by it and used it to call my parents' house. I feel so nostalgic right now

[Syed Osama]

I like rotary phones 

[Dustin Smith _K15t_]

I remember the various * (star) codes you could use  to do things like, 1) *69 to find out the number of the last incoming call and (optionally) call it back, 2) *66 continuously re-dial a busy number until it rings, 3) *78 do not disturb, to block all incoming calls (really helpful when using a dial-up modem, since those connections would get interrupted by incoming calls).

I also remember the early 3-way calling, where you had to call the 1st person and have them answer, put the 1st person on hold with the "Flash" key (or by really quickly tapping the cutoff on the cradle), dial the second number, and then press Flash again to bring the 1st person back onto the call. It was fun, but there was a lot of accidentally hanging up on each other :) You could also daisy-chain the 3-way calling, by having one of the people you called go through the same process and "pull" someone else into the call. One of the problems with this method though, is that it was hard to get off of those calls and get your dial tone back until everyone hung up. My dad used to tell the story of 5-6 people taking turns shouting into the receiver trying to wake up one of the original callers who had fallen asleep during a long call!

[Amanda McCauley]

The very long cord so you could walk the corded phone all over the house and when someone else was doing that and you opened your door you just might need to duck under the cord to navigate around the house.