Thursday, September 24, 2009

Remember Pay Phones?

When using the first pay telephones, a caller did not deposit coins in the machine. He or she gave them to an attendant who stood next to the telephone. Self-service coin telephones did not appear until 1899.

7 comments:

Wonder Man said...

I haven't seen one in a while

the dogs' mother said...

what would they have thought of cell phones??

Ms. Moon said...

Cell phones were like Dick Tracy stuff. I sort of miss pay phones. I sort of miss not being able to be connected and reachable all the damn time.

Ms. Moon said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Miss Ginger Grant said...

Momma made me keep a dime in the bottom on my band shoes in case I ever needed to call home... collect, of course!

Are you old enough to remember when they turned the crank and yelled "operator, operator?"

Didn't think so!

Me, either!

Joy said...

Nope. I just remember those black dial phones everybody had. And operators! I lived in a small town and when I was very young, we had to make calls with the operator. That made me think about Lily Tomlin's, "One ringy-dingy. Two ringy-dingies. Is this the party to whom I am speaking?" What was her telephone operator character's name?

Unknown said...

It wasn't that long ago that we encouraged the kids to have a quarter for the phone everyday as regularly as they had lunch money. We still have a pay phone in the lobby which is always ringing because the kids get the number and call it from their cell phones just for the heckofit.