Saturday, July 17, 2010

Remembering telephones

Yesterday, hearing Regis and Kelly discussing the telephones of their youth, I recalled the telephone we had when I was a lad. Our telephone was a wooden box, attached to the wall. There was a crank on the side of the box for alerting the operator or calling others on our party line. Our telephone number was 44F22. The "22" meant our ring was two long rings and two short rings. We had a neighbor whose number was 44F05 with five short rings. About two or three times each week there would be a series of five short rings at 4:30 or 5:00 in the morning. This was the neighbor's contact in San Francisco reporting on the price of chickens at the auction house. It would have been a lot less intrusive had the internet or cell phones been available then.