Motivational Poster Thread (warning content)

My first phone number began with KE (Kenwood) 5. I still had a party line in the house when the kids were born. Funny part is that the phone lines worked even when the power was out. Not so easy with cellular.

 

Ah, yes. The old Bell System(s)
My dad was a lineman for years with Mountain Bell. I worked briefly as Monkey labor (Western Electric installer of CO equipment) but went into the military - a lot less boring.

Later, I worked for A phone company (CLEC) and an entirely different universe thanks to the break up of the Bell systems in 1984.

 

Had to explain to my daughter’s boyfriend studying electrical engineering all about rotary phones, the relay switching, why area codes used to all have a 1 or 0 as the middle digit and why Chicago was 312, NY was 212, LA 213, Alaska was 907, etc. Fortunately, he actually got it and saw the wisdom in all of it.

 

SE Michigan was 313, still is in parts of Detroit. Used to be Ann Arbor

 

...and with a bit of practice you could dial a number by quickly tapping the hook the appropriate number of times...BAldwin was our office code

 

MA 1 0873 W
Yep, party line and we were the only party on it. Phasing out party lines and switchboard operators at the time.

 

I still have a rotary wall phone in use

 

You are old

 

I have got candlestick phones, sound power phones, and old wall crank phones. some phone systems use to
accommodate the rotary phones but those are days gone by.

 

I remember picking up the phone at grandma's house and listening to 2 old ladies gossiping. Grandma would come in , smack me on the head and tell me to go outside.
My Mom was a Ma Bell operator for a while , and i can remember being able to dial Zero ,, and my Mom would answer the phone ,,

 

I can vaguely remember the partyline phone we had at a rental home when I was very young. Occasionally Mom would pick up the phone to make a call, a neighbor was chatting, and Mom would ask then politely to get off the line so she could make her call.

 

Yep, typo on my part, hit the 3 instead of 2 and didn’t notice. Chicago is 312 not 313. Goose Island Brewing based in the Windy City makes a nice wheat beer called 312.