Originally Posted By: aquariuscsm
Originally Posted By: demarpaint
These were the stone age days when cordless phones didn't exist. I went inside to take the call
CRAZY how long ago that seems!! Thinking back when I was a kid playing outside,mom or dad would open the front door and shout out,"Son,so and so's on the phone",we'd stop what we were doing and go inside to answer the phone. A bright yellow or dark green rotary phone. We eventually upgraded to a touch tone "Slimline" phone from Southwestern Bell. I remember how high tech it seemed,the buttons even lit up!
And now we carry around a super computer in our pocket!
My folks leased a black Bakelight rotary phone from Ma Bell starting in the early '50s until around the mid '80s...they made payments on that thing for over 30 years. My dad justified it by saying that repairs to and replacement of the phone were covered! When old Bessie finally bit the dust, I bought him a touchtone phone for about $20 and said he hated it for about the first week. Finally, he admitted that he really liked it and cursed himself for paying an ungodly amount of money for that black lump over the years. Dad never got an answering machine on that line, he didn't like talking to people and didn't want to feel obligated to respond to a message.
When we bought our ski condo, there were some old rotary phones tucked away in closets and drawers and my 8 year old daughter just LOVED them...she gathered them all up in her room and would play with the dials for hours.
We were on a party line when I was a kid and it was both a pain and great fun...we had some neighbor who was on the phone way too much and would refuse to get off even if we had an urgent call to make, but I could also pick up very quietly and listen in on her gabbing when I was bored. She never really had anything interesting to say, but I guess it was just the idea that I was being bad that made it fun...it was even better when she'd hear the faintest click or me breathing when I got on and start screaming, "WHO'S LISTENING IN??? GET OFF THE LINE!!! GET OFF THE LINE!!!" She couldn't figure out if anybody else was really there or whom it might be, so I'd just listen to her yell and giggle into my hand.