At Last, a Cell Phone for Seniors! Well maybe. Maybe not. My arthritic fingers can barely handle laptops much less up to date cellphone/I phone whatevers with their itty bity buttons....:(
But you REALLY have to be old enough to appreciate this:
The above comment and picture were received here by email recently. Talk about being really old and out of date, I didn't appreciate it because I'm old enough to remember, from visiting my rural cousins as a youth....... the hand cranked, party line telephones, that hung on the wall where you spoke into the speaker, while you held the reciver up to your ear. NOW THAT'S OLD! Oh and I forgot, you have to "ring up" the operator, who will make the call for you.
Times have sure changed. I don't remember party lines, but I do remember buying a cord for my phone that reached through the entire house. I could finally talk on the phone and get things done around the house. Now, speakerphones or headsets do that. Wonder when telepathy will work.....
ReplyDeleteHi TB - we had a battery operated one via an exchange -- but this was in Surrey, near enough to Heathrow Airport as it is today ... when I was in Zimbabwe their system was still party-line oriented ... but I still don't use the phone that much! Cheers Hilary
ReplyDeleteOh I so remember party lines and knowing what your ring was. Ours was two longs and a short.
ReplyDeleteBTW, Congrats on your favorite breed winning Westminster best of show. Thought of you when Rumor stole the show. GSDs rule.
HAD ONE OF THOSE IN THE old house on the farm. In fact it's still there. My brother left it on the wall when the new system was installed.
ReplyDeleteAnd I thought I was old fashioned because we had a party line when I was a kid! :-)
ReplyDeleteThat's not old! That was just a few years ago. I should know; I remember!
ReplyDeleteWe had a wooden one rebuilt to handle calls on its own.
ReplyDeleteGosh, I'd forgotten about those party lines. They could be quite embarrassing sometimes! Gosh, haven't things moved on?
ReplyDeleteI've never seen a cell phone like that one. It's amazing how much technology had advanced !
ReplyDeleteI wasn't rural enough to experience those phones, but I do remember a rotary phone and even a party line. My mother kept a rotary phone until she passed away -- in this century, mind you.
ReplyDeleteGreat pictures. I had almost forgotten, we had a party line in our first home in B.C. In the early seventies! And calling home to the Netherlands took half the day and involved several operators. At some point the connection was made and they called you back. Some things are progress.
ReplyDeleteGreat post Sr T! Just great. And thanks to your friends for their comments; how fun to recollect those earlier stages of technology. We, too, had a party line at home. Two short rings. Our number was 71. The we got a more advanced one. 257R.
ReplyDeleteYou placed a call by picking up the receiver, waiting for the operator to notice, then told her the number you wanted to call. Amazing. I guess I haven't talked to an operator in quite a few years. I used to talk to them all the time, for various reasons.
By the way. FYI. My aunt was an operator in another town and long after she retired she told me that when they were bored they'd listen in on peoples' calls. Some if which, I imagine, were quite entertaining, maybe when two people were fighting over the phone. Or two lovers. "The minute I see you I'm going to..."
Well, people, you know what you said to each other. And so did the operator.
Hi Troutbirder, Gotta love it! I take it we share one of life's little miseries ... big fingers on small devices. Yes, I miss those rotary dials! I guess those phones still work, don't they? But, dialing up the Operator ... now that really makes me smile. Neat post, thanks for sharing!
ReplyDeleteBoy does that bring back memories. I remember visiting my grandmother in Brattleboro, Vt. and she would always chat with the operator both before and after her calls. I think they were actually friends.
ReplyDeleteI don't like the tiny buttons on my husbands phone. We still have a dial phone for a hard line in the bedroom :)
ReplyDeleteHi Troutbirder!! Yes, I am old enough to remember the "crank phone!" There are advantages to the days gone by! The operator in our small town knew everyone and if someone wasn't home, she'd take a message and call later! (Voicemail with a personality!) I think our community was one of the last ones to get rid of these phones!
ReplyDeleteWhile I don't like the new larger phones, it at least solves the problem of everything being too tiny. I hated those little phones!!
ReplyDeleteI don't remember the crank phones but what is amazing to me is that the "phone" has gone from a device attached to the wall that did one thing -- enabled you to talk to someone far away -- to a tiny thing you carry everywhere in your pocket, something that will do a million things,including take photographs, look up thIngs for you on the Internet, talk you through driving directions to anywhere you want to go, wake you up in the morning, play games with you, and on and on. And all that in my children's lifetime!
ReplyDeleteI'm sort of missing those days when you could leave your phone at home and take a real break.
ReplyDeleteNow you're making me feel old -- I remember this type of phone from my grandparent's home. (Their house was also four rooms and a path, if you know what I mean!).
ReplyDeleteBy the way, Maryville, Tennessee is on our favorite route to the Smokies from our house.
My first memory of phones are the black phones with no dial. You picked up the receiver, clicked the button on the cradle and the operator said gently, "number please." My mother often sent me to our neighbor's yard (she was on our party line) to have her go inside and pick up the phone to talk with my mom.
ReplyDeleteYour phones are too modern looking for me. Where I live we communicate with each other by using strings attached to tin cans and throw alphabet soup on each others lawns when we want to text.
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