Old style phone culture

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Dland

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I was looking on "the information super highway" to see if my early childhood home had brunt in Pasadena Ca (it hadn't). I easily recalled the street address, even though we moved before I was 7. Then I remembered my phone # Sycamore 8-xxxx. Sycamore was 79. If I recall correctly, the phone exchanges were tree themed in that area. I asked my gal if she remembered her first phone number, in Long Island, and her exchange was Grover; 47. She's not what sure Grover was, but it probably was not a tree.

I guess it is pretty common for us kids of that era to taught remember our first phone #s, we were generally allowed to roam and that was how we were supposed to get found if we got lost.

I don't know where I'm going with this, but old phone exchange trivia would not be the dumbest topic brought up on this forum. ;]
 
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I’ve lived so many damn places, I can’t recall all my home addresses and/or phone numbers, but it is surprising how many I can still recall some 20+ years later.

Crud…I just did some math of an address and phone number that I can recall and that would be a lot more than 20+ years. Boooo
 
I recall memorizing numbers partly by what letters went with them and making words. One friend's number ended in "4 pot" and let's say that was appropriate.
 
In the early 50's the local exchange in Bedford where my parents bought their first home in MA was referred to as "CRystal 4", with "CRystal" = 27. So our phone number was "CRystal 4 6386" for 274-6386. I vague remember one picked up the phone and it would automatically ring the local exchange down the street and when answered by an operator you'd verbally convey the number you wanted...

Cheers!

[edit] I just remembered...when "dial it yourownself" started we only had to dial the last four digits inside the CRystal 4 exchange. That paradigm persisted for many years until the exchange had to be split because Bedford had transitioned from a farming community to a bedroom community in the late 50s/early 60s - with explosive growth...
 
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I use my old numbers for secret code passwords. Even my best friend growing up #. I work in security where they still have the old hanger receiver for protected communication. There's no better satisfaction of slamming the receiver on the hanger. You got to be careful as I've almost ripped the phone off the wall. However, such a stress reliever

Funny thing is there's sometimes when I'm asked for my current phone number and I freeze
 
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My childhood phone number is my mom’s cell number and she now lives 600 miles away. And our number from my daughter’s childhood is now her cell number even though she lives 250 miles away. I imagine that many people will now have near-lifetime numbers like that.
 
My childhood phone number is my mom’s cell number and she now lives 600 miles away. And our number from my daughter’s childhood is now her cell number even though she lives 250 miles away. I imagine that many people will now have near-lifetime numbers like that.
My wife, daughter, and I all have (sequential) cell numbers from an upstate NY area code, even tho my daughter has lived in the Seattle area for 20 yrs, and my wife and I have lived near Seattle for 11 years. 2261 miles away.

Brew on :mug:
 
My childhood number started with Sunset and a good friend a few miles away was Cypress. I also remember having a party line, you had to see if someone was already using the line. You could also listen in on their conversation.
 
My wife, daughter, and I all have (sequential) cell numbers from an upstate NY area code, even tho my daughter has lived in the Seattle area for 20 yrs, and my wife and I have lived near Seattle for 11 years. 2261 miles away.

Brew on :mug:
You used to abe able to tell where a call was from, but being able to keep your number has done away with that!
 
Back in the early 90s, I remember coming home from work and checking my messages to see who called. One message in particular had a couple of girls going at it. It was like listening in on an all girl porno. "WTH, is going on here?" I thought. Then I hear my friend's voice in the background talking dirty to them and "doing what guys in a porno would do" and all which really had me wondering. This was in the early days of Caller ID (I still had the separate box for the number display back then) and all this was going on from his number.

Then I put 2 & 2 together and forgot he had three-way calling. He called a phone sex line, then called me right after the ad on the phone sex line started playing. Glad my mom wasn't home to hear all that.
 
My childhood phone number was "CRestwood 7-1748. Apparently, some people couldn't memorize the full 7-digit number that was assigned, so they used that mnemonic to help remember the first two. IIRC, you only had to dial the last 5 if you were calling locally, anyway. We dialed direct for relatives, but if we didn't know the number we called by using an operator. There was "Directory Assistance," where you'd dial 0+area code and say "I want to place a call to [name] in [city/state]". You could call "collect," and let the person on the other end pay for the charges if they agreed. We all had rotary dial phones, but a few friends had "Trimline" touch tone phones, which we thought were hot shiat at the time.

For some reason I can remember that after all these decades, but not what I had for lunch 2 days ago. :)

We never had party lines but I had a friend who lived outside of town and there were 3 or 4 homes connected to the same line. Each home had a different ring so they knew if the incoming call was for them. Whenever I called my friend, the call had to be short, so as not to tie up the lines. We weren't much phone talkers, anyway. Occasionally, the nosey old lady next door to him would quietly pick up the phone to eavesdrop, but we could hear the tell-tale click and would say "We'd like to welcome our new listeners who just tuned in...," then hear her quickly hang up.

I remember when 800 numbers became popular, called WATS Lines. And phone books--a new one every year.

Thank you for coming to my retro telephone system TED Talk.
 
I can still remember the whole number from when I was a kid.
The exchange was "Faculty 3" and when asked for your phone number you replied "FA3", not "323" which would have been easier to hear and dial.
Of course the number equally burned into my memory is "Hudson 3-2700".
Anybody remember that one too? I remember that number but not the name of the business (it was a carpet cleaner).
 
My childhood phone number was "CRestwood 7-1748. Apparently, some people couldn't memorize the full 7-digit number that was assigned, so they used that mnemonic to help remember the first two. IIRC, you only had to dial the last 5 if you were calling locally, anyway. We dialed direct for relatives, but if we didn't know the number we called by using an operator. There was "Directory Assistance," where you'd dial 0+area code and say "I want to place a call to [name] in [city/state]". You could call "collect," and let the person on the other end pay for the charges if they agreed. We all had rotary dial phones, but a few friends had "Trimline" touch tone phones, which we thought were hot shiat at the time.

For some reason I can remember that after all these decades, but not what I had for lunch 2 days ago. :)

We never had party lines but I had a friend who lived outside of town and there were 3 or 4 homes connected to the same line. Each home had a different ring so they knew if the incoming call was for them. Whenever I called my friend, the call had to be short, so as not to tie up the lines. We weren't much phone talkers, anyway. Occasionally, the nosey old lady next door to him would quietly pick up the phone to eavesdrop, but we could hear the tell-tale click and would say "We'd like to welcome our new listeners who just tuned in...," then hear her quickly hang up.

I remember when 800 numbers became popular, called WATS Lines. And phone books--a new one every year.

Thank you for coming to my retro telephone system TED Talk.
Ahh, the old rural "Party line" :)
 
You used to abe able to tell where a call was from, but being able to keep your number has done away with that!
When people ask for my phone number, I often say something like "For extra credit, can you guess where that area code is from?" I don't think anyone has ever gotten it correct.

Brew on :mug:
 
I used to have fun as a kid trying to match exchanges to neighborhoods, but when I saw the tile of this thread I was expecting stuff like this:
IMG_1706.jpg
 
My childhood phone number is my mom’s cell number and she now lives 600 miles away. And our number from my daughter’s childhood is now her cell number even though she lives 250 miles away. I imagine that many people will now have near-lifetime numbers like that.
1736717901119.png
 
I used to go out with someone that was six years younger than me. I'm not that old!!! She grew up in the lakes vacation area of Maine. Not the deep woods and close to cities. I was fascinated by her stories of the party line phones. I just couldn't comprehend and kept making Mayberry jokes. Waking up Sara on the line to call J-234.... Times change quick.
 
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When I lived in England, my number was Kimbolton 303. If you called anyone in the Kimbolton area, you just dialed the 3 digits. If you were outside the area, there was a long sequence of numbers to get to Kimbolton, similar to area codes but differed depending on WHERE you were calling from and many more digits.
Me.

Brew on :mug:
me
 
The system used was called "Pulse dialing". That was succeeded by DTMF (Dual tone multiple frequency) on the push button phones though pulse still worked in many if not all systems until the current digital system.
The Bell system was big on "if it ain't broke don't spend millions $$ fixing it".
 
this is a cool thread i am jealous i didnt think of it.

mine was dewey 9 for DE 9 or 339.

i thought mine was special cause as a kid i thought the guy who invented the dewey decimal system in the library owned the phone company. why else would he get to have his name on all the phone numbers. i didnt really know anyone outside of 339 location

i also remember when my borough changed area codes in 1984 and we suddenly had to dial 718 before a number.

that was weird
 
............ There was "Directory Assistance," where you'd dial 0+area code and say "I want to place a call to [name] in [city/state]". You could call "collect," and let the person on the other end pay for the charges if they agreed. We all had rotary dial phones, but a few friends had "Trimline" touch tone phones, which we thought were hot shiat at the time..........


My younger brother, when he was still in the Marines, was stationed out west. He would call collect and tell the operator he was Ron Jeremy. The operator, most of the time was a female, always had this puzzled sound in her voice when she would ask me if I "would accept charges on a collect call from 'a Ron Jeremy'". Him giggling in the background didn't help...........
 
Any cows ridden to church or pigtails dipped in inkwells?:rolleyes:

I can remember rotary phones and when you only had to dial 7 digits if it wasn't long distance. And using that 20 ft handset cord to take your call into another room for privacy. And I remember Junior Samples' number. BR549.
 
There used to be "ring back" numbers that telephone technicians used to test out your phone. You pick up the phone, dial (or punch in) the number, hang up. In a few seconds the phone would ring. Our next door neighbor was a tech for Northwestern Bell, and he told us about it.

We'd use it as a gag if we were at a friend's house. When no one was looking, grab the phone, dial the #, hang up. Hilarity would ensue when someone ran to the phone, picked it up, and no one was on the line.

Then there were all the crank phone calls kids made. "Is your refrigerator running?" "Do you have Prince Albert in a can?" Loads of fun when you're 7.

[I used to tie an onion to my belt, which was the style at the time...]
 
Any cows ridden to church or pigtails dipped in inkwells?:rolleyes:

I can remember rotary phones and when you only had to dial 7 digits if it wasn't long distance. And using that 20 ft handset cord to take your call into another room for privacy. And I remember Junior Samples' number. BR549.
Hee haw salutes: snuffy. Population 1. Salute!

Man I loved that show.

 
My younger brother, when he was still in the Marines, was stationed out west. He would call collect and tell the operator he was Ron Jeremy. The operator, most of the time was a female, always had this puzzled sound in her voice when she would ask me if I "would accept charges on a collect call from 'a Ron Jeremy'". Him giggling in the background didn't help...........
i had 3 older brothers in college . all day long it was will you accept a collect call from ......
 
We'd use it as a gag if we were at a friend's house. When no one was looking, grab the phone, dial the #, hang up. Hilarity would ensue when someone ran to the phone, picked it up, and no one was on the line.
Grew up in a bowling alley.. this was quite the boredom breaker once you ran out of quarters!

Then there was the phenomenon when you picked up the phone to make a call and someone you knew was already on the line.
 
A bit before my time with the alpha-numeric operator lingo, but I went on a little research and one author had this gem, "Once, when I called from long distance and Mother didn’t answer, the Atlanta operator said, “She’s probably at the Farm Bureau meeting, I’ll try there.” And, she was.". Community living indeed, this is a small town in Michigan.

Switchboard operators and ring-down circuits! Once a caller cranked the magneto a panel on the switchboard opens (or lights up) for the operator to plug in... if a conversation was underway they would allegedly move along, otherwise you would hear "Operator" and you make your request. What I did not know, was the sequences of rings and turns of the crank would send out a ring, series of rings, or even ring the entire line of phones.

 
Is the two lettering system what people meant by "I'm old enough to remember when the phone numbers were only five digits"?

I had my own "teen line" when we moved, early 80's. Mom hated all the teenage calling and my older brothers had moved out so I had my own phone number. After the kitchen wall phone, any extra phones were the typical sub sized receiver and cradle style. You used to have to lease your phone back then. Around that time, that policy ended as the phone company was broken up. I had one of those but we then we bought one that was a rotary to avoid the monthly payment. Rotaries were mostly a thing of the past by then so I would get a kick out of letting friends use mine. Even if they knew how to work it, it was handheld and they'd trip up and have to start over. I was super fast dialing it too.

Directory assistance (Information, 555-1212?) was free initially. We'd let the three year old staying with us call that and pretend to have a conversation. The operator would get mad after a while and call us back and told us to stop doing it. That game ended quick once they started charging, 10 cents a call!

Star codes. There were a couple different ones. One was a callback code (*69?) since there was no caller id. I think one of those was the make your phone ring code.

We would call collect from a pay phone and have the other person write the pay phone number down to call us back. We'd also have the other person call us back collect. Eventually the operators caught on to that and being able to call the pay phone collect was not allowed. "I'm sorry, the number you are trying to reach is a pay phone and does not accept collect calls. Please check the number and try again."

Sometimes the number was busy. Sometimes for hours because it was "off the hook" (knocked over for instance). It would make the most annoying noise for about a minute then stop, dead air. I'd walk over to friends and tell them their phone was off the hook and sometimes it still was.
 
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