How out of date are we?

[handibunny]

Joe and I were wondering if we asked our children (ages 26-42) why there were letters as well as numbers on the phone keypad (forget dial!) if any of them would know the origin. We're going to ask them when we get together in about 2 weeks at our post-Thanksgiving get together.

If you get a chance, ask it this weekend of your kids/grandkids, and see whether this bit of history has been totally lost.

BUtterfield 8 anyone?

[RegisG]

UNderhill3-1361 in Irwin, Pa about 1960 when I was in high school. Before that, I don't remember.

[sawdustus]

Great question Carole. FOrdham 5-4937 in NYC. I'll ask on Thursday. I bet they answer that it's so they can text or tweet.

george

[Kepy]

Ours was two shorts and a long on a party line.

[ubgoofy2003]

Wow, I remember when my Mother was telephone operator in our small town in Iowa. I even subbed for her so she could have a break from it. Yes, we had party line too. It was a long-short-long type rings. I even snooped once in a while on some of the girls conversations & they would tell me to quit listening, HA I didn't make a habit of it though. I respected the responsibility of my Mom as operator. Those were the days.

[BobD (Archive)]

LOL...I fall into the clueless young people category...

Bob

[martzy]

Long short long? Party line? Operator? Facebook? Friend me? Like me? LOL? BTW? IMHO? Even when I am in the times, I am behind the times.

[wood-n-things]

I don't remember our phone number but I do remember asking the operator to connect me, and also having a party line. Always said the word and the number to the operator...Gosh we are old.

[Greenfield_Bob]

Our phone number was 280 then was changed to HO 280

Bob

[Jim Finn]

Ours was JAckson 6346 Back in the 40's

[Steve838]

Our first phone in the late 1940's was IVanhoe 6-0002. Did you realize that there was a problem using the 57 prefix? The only word they could think of at the time was KRemlin, which wasn't very politically correct during the Cold War. Can you think of better ones? And while you are at it, ask the younger generation about Area Codes and Zip Codes. They are fairly new to us old fogies. You had to speak to a real live operator to call long distance and the cost was prohibitive.

[handibunny]

Whenever anyone in my family traveled out of town, we'd call home collect and ask for ourselves to let people know we'd arrived safely. Calling long distance was for rich people. I remember station-to-station long distance, and person-to-person.

I also remember postal zones, which pre-dated zip codes. And I remember one radio advertisement whose jingle was MElrose 5-5300. I can still sing the jingle, but I have no idea what store it was for.

I only knew about party lines from being in the country in the summer. Most of us had no access to a phone for those two months, and I don't think anyone missed it.

And how many people are going to be texting and tweeting at this year's Thanksgiving table? Maybe I'm showing my age, but I really, really, really think that's just not right!

[guitarman]

I must be getting old. How do all of you remember all that stuff? I remember having it but I don't remember what it was.
David

[martzy]

I remember getting yelled at by my mother to keep it down because she was on the phone long distance. Don't really bat an eyelash at it now.

[Powakee]

I remember when Swiss Family Robinson came out and our parents took us down to visit the grandparents in Odessa. They dropped me & my 2 brothers at the movie and we were supposed to call them when it was over. We called and called but the call never went through. Finally, they showed up and asked why we didn't call. We showed them the paper they gave us with the number and told them that it didn't work. That's when I learned that you had to dial the UNderwood before the number. Never made that mistake again and never forgot it.

Wowsers! what a memory!

John