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Stay At Home Humor

plpgma

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As someone who grew up "from Philly", I find the second map more inaccurate, as my childhood home would appear to now be completely under the water in the "straits of disinterest."
Ha ha -- Unfortunately for you, the guy who posted the second map (me) is born and bred Pittsburgh -- hence my finding the second map most accurate! :LOL:
 

Rjbeach2003

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The first phone number I remember about, I can't remember the number was 5 digits. Then came the prefix, FL, for Fleetwood. If anyone remembers the Fleetwoods from the 1950's, they took their name from the phone number. Olympia WA. Then they switched to numbers. as more phones came on line.
But do any of you remember the farm lines. My grandparents number was 7F3. They were the 7th phone on the 3rd farm line. It was a party line and my grandmother and everyone else would listen in on conversations. I remember once when my Dad tried to call his parents, pre direct dial, operator needed. The operator refused to believe 7F3 was really a number.
 

DaveNV

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This is how it goes.

junk.jpg


:D Dave
 

BJRSanDiego

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@clifffaith and @Quiet Pine
I’ve never seen a 5-digit phone number with preceding letters. Did those correspond to the letters under the 2 through 9 on old school phones?
The first phone number that we had when I was a kid (in the '50's) was PArkway 7814. You only dialed the letters PA, which represented 72. So numerically our number was 72-7814. Only six digits. And it was in a moderately big city. We were on a "two party line" which meant that while you had a unique number dialing in, you were actually sharing the line with someone else. So if you lifted the handset and heard someone else talking, you quietly put the phone down and waited a while. When I was 7 or 8, they added a digit, so our number became PA2-7814. A few years later my folks "splurged" and got us a "private" line.

In the rural areas, sometimes farmers would have 8 or 16-party lines. I think that most of those were on really old phones without a dial, so you lifted the earpiece, and waited for the operator. When you were getting an incoming call, each home would have a distinctive ring. Like "two longs and one short". I remember being told that when the doctor or minister was called (people learned the ring pattern of those people) late at night, that so many people might listen in that it was hard to hear what was being said.
 

T_R_Oglodyte

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I have a vague memory of when I was younger, of visiting families in farm country in Minnesota, where there wasn't a dial phone. You picked up the phone and a switchboard operator would answer, and you would give her (always female) the number to connect to. She would then make the connection by plugging cable for the line you were on to a connection for the other phone. Below is a picture of a switchboard in action.

Dusting further, I think that those two letter prefixes originally identified a particular exchange (switchboard location). If you were calling inside the same exchange, you could be connected directly. If you were calling outside the exchange, the local exchange would patch to the target exchange, and an operator at that exchange would complete the call.

Phone service was metered by the call. The more calls you made, the more you paid - made sense since each call required a phone company employee action to complete the call. And you paid more calls outside of your exchange.

1598913461161.png



When I was in grade school, in suburban Minneapolis in the early 1960's, I remember that we had a two-party phone line. A private line was available, but it cost extra. We were not the only family who had a party line. I recall there was a kind of game to try to figure out where, if not who, the other party was that shared the line.
 

Luanne

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I have a vague memory of when I was younger, of visiting families in farm country in Minnesota, where there wasn't a dial phone. You picked up the phone and a switchboard operator would answer, and you would give her (always female) the number to connect to. She would then make the connection by plugging cable for the line you were on to a connection for the other phone. Below is a picture of a switchboard in action.

Dusting further, I think that those two letter prefixes originally identified a particular exchange (switchboard location). If you were calling inside the same exchange, you could be connected directly. If you were calling outside the exchange, the local exchange would patch to the target exchange, and an operator at that exchange would complete the call.

Phone service was metered by the call. The more calls you made, the more you paid - made sense since each call required a phone company employee action to complete the call. And you paid more calls outside of your exchange.

View attachment 25709


When I was in grade school, in suburban Minneapolis in the early 1960's, I remember that we had a two-party phone line. A private line was available, but it cost extra. We were not the only family who had a party line. I recall there was a kind of game to try to figure out where, if not who, the other party was that shared the line.
We had a party line and knew exactly who shared it. It was one of our neighbors. Bad kid that I was, I would listen in at times. :p
 

Ken555

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Fun thread! Glad we are keeping it going... but, please take the phone history posts to another thread! Thanks. :)
 

Rolltydr

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I have a vague memory of when I was younger, of visiting families in farm country in Minnesota, where there wasn't a dial phone. You picked up the phone and a switchboard operator would answer, and you would give her (always female) the number to connect to. She would then make the connection by plugging cable for the line you were on to a connection for the other phone. Below is a picture of a switchboard in action.

Dusting further, I think that those two letter prefixes originally identified a particular exchange (switchboard location). If you were calling inside the same exchange, you could be connected directly. If you were calling outside the exchange, the local exchange would patch to the target exchange, and an operator at that exchange would complete the call.

Phone service was metered by the call. The more calls you made, the more you paid - made sense since each call required a phone company employee action to complete the call. And you paid more calls outside of your exchange.

View attachment 25709


When I was in grade school, in suburban Minneapolis in the early 1960's, I remember that we had a two-party phone line. A private line was available, but it cost extra. We were not the only family who had a party line. I recall there was a kind of game to try to figure out where, if not who, the other party was that shared the line.
I grew up in a small town in Alabama of about 5,000 people in the 60’s. The earliest memory of a phone number that I have is 473R2. I think that was actually the number of my best friend who lived about 3 or 4 houses down but I guess it could have been ours. As you said, you would pick up the handset and the operator would come on and ask “number please”? When we actually got our first dial phone, everybody was converted to digits I believe, but we were on an 8 party line so it was not unusual to pick up the phone and hear neighbors talking. It’s funny, now we have cellphones that many of us use to do almost anything but talk to each other! :D
 

Rolltydr

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Fun thread! Glad we are keeping it going... but, please take the phone history posts to another thread! Thanks. :)
Sorry, posted before I read your request. :censored:
 

T_R_Oglodyte

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Fun thread! Glad we are keeping it going... but, please take the phone history posts to another thread! Thanks. :)
Trying to herd TUGgers, are you?? So did you manage that with cats, and now you think you're ready for the big time???
 

Ken555

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Trying to herd TUGgers, are you?? So did you manage that with cats, and now you think you're ready for the big time???

See post #1


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
 

Tank

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T_R_Oglodyte

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See post #1


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
Still trying to herd cats!!! :D

The Blues Brothers - "Think" with Aretha Franklin

 

DaveNV

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Screen Shot 2020-08-31 at 9.52.14 PM.png


:D Dave
 

Tank

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Tank

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