Do you guys remember rotary telephones?

as the generations turn....

When my boys (now 36 & 33) became teenagers I would pick them up at their moms in Beech Island, SC near the Georgia border and bring them back to Connecticut to spend summers with me. On one such trip down (pre gps or cell phones by a lot of years) I got turned around and besides being way out in the country, it was maybe just 6am. I came across what could have been a Norman Rockwell painting, a quaint, very antique, "Petticoat Junction Gas Station & General Store." Whooohooo, it was open. By the way, I never knew there was a real place called Petticoat Junction but there it was. :)

I parked my pickup truck, went inside and was met with a friendly "good mawnin" coming from the nearly-equally-antique store owner, a ninety-and-some-odd-years-looking, frail black gentleman. I told him I was lost and looking for an adress in Beech Island. He pointed in the direction of Beech Island and offered me to use his phone to call ahead for directions. I walked over to a wall phone that must have been from the 1910's and I wasn't sure how to use it. It had the cloth-corded part you lift up to your ear and talk directly into the fixed mouthpiece on the phone box. And yeah, it was a rotary, maybe the first one ever made. Just slightly different than a DROID. :grin-square:

On the way out I noticed a few signed pictures of James Brown hanging on the walls and so I asked if he had stopped by recently. The old man said James is my friend, he comes in here all the time. I was thinking okay, this fellow has been working in this hot store for a lot of years and at his age, maybe he's getting a little fuzzy. I settled up for my coffee and gas, thanked him very much, and left.

I drove off the lot and made a right turn onto the country road and within 100 yards there was a huge wrought iron gate in front of a long beautiful driveway. I went by very slow and smiled real big as I saw the decorative musical notes adorning the gate surrounding the two big letters, J B. :thumbup: Guess the old man wasn't so fuzzy, after all. :o

Best,
Brian kc REgent 5-4981
P.S. I enjoy the sound and feel of old phone so much that I have one wall phone from the 40's and a desk phone from the 30's. Real pieces of equipment, these old ones...and the ring...
 
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Tiddler said:
I remember my first number as well. It was 442 and you couldn't dial at all. You waited for an operator to connect you. I'd ask for 442 to tell my Mom where I was headed after school and the operator was likely to say, "If you're looking for your mother, she isn't home she's playing bridge at the Hardin's let me connect you there."
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Sounds like you and I grew up in the same town! LOL

Steve
 
The pushbutton phones had been out quite a while, but I still had an old rotary. Some friends of my daughters were over, and one of them wanted to call home. She went to the wall phone and took the receiver off the hook, then was stumped what to do next. She put her finger in one of the holes in the rotary and pushed, not knowing you had to spin the dial. She says your phone doesn't work. Would love to have a video of that happening.
 
I wonder how many of you "youngsters" know what that noise is on the Beatles' song "Come Together"... lol...:wink:

Best,
Brian kc
 
Anybody remember the phones with NO rotary dial? As a kid I saw a few (no longer in use). Heard you lifted the reciever and clicked the hangup portion a few times to get the operators attention. Along the same lines I remember as a kid staying at hotels where you picked up a phone and it connected you directly to a hotel operator to make your call. :thumbup:
 
Dave Nelson said:
Remember the rotary, heck, I still have one in my basement, right by the pool table. It works, I own it, I use it every day.

Crawfish, where do you get all the stuff you come out with? You should write books, and I been meaning to ask, who the heck is McLovin and why are you sporting him? It sounds obscene to me.

Dave Nelson
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\
You need to see that movie then...well worth the 2hrs it will cost you.
Then see The Hangover.
 
BarenbruggeCues said:
Worse than the rotarys alone was a rotary with a party line. Every time one wanted to use the phone, you had to pick it up and listen to see if someone was on the line before you started dialing. My mom still had that phone till almost the 90's I think. She wasn't changing till the phone company made her.
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Been there and done that! First rotary phone I remember was the upright kind. My grand parents changed soon as the phone co., thought.
 
Ah, the memories of rotary dials...

...I still have a few around in my house, though none are currently hooked up.

Many years ago I had a couple of GTE dial phones which you could increase the dialing speed substantially by tweaking the governor inside; it sped dialing up about 50% or so when I got done with them. We had Ma Bell at the house I grew up in and the No. 1 Crossbar central office (CO) didn't seem to mind at all that I had off-brand phones on their system- of course, I disconnected the bells so they wouldn't be detected via ringer current (remember, this was back when you couldn't own your own phone). Some years later I reconnected one of the phones to the line which now had electronic switching in the CO and the newfangled system did NOT like those non-Bell phones! It flat-out shut down the line!

Oh, speaking of GTE and phones- about 1982 or so, GTE had a huge surplus sale not too far from where I lived and I picked up a heavily-chrome-plated triple-slot coin dial phone for $25.00 which I still have. That phone is worth a bit more now.

The memories of rotary dialing... when phone numbers had prefixes which enabled you to tell approximately where someone lived... e.g., EMerson would be North Seattle vicinity... SUnset would be Ballard (just last week my cousin who is nearing 90 gave me my aunt's phone number and she still had it written as SUnset!!)... the list goes on, of course.

What a great thread!
 
phone

Tiddler said:
I remember my first number as well. It was 442 and you couldn't dial at all. You waited for an operator to connect you. I'd ask for 442 to tell my Mom where I was headed after school and the operator was likely to say, "If you're looking for your mother, she isn't home she's playing bridge at the Hardin's let me connect you there."
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Ditto;Me as well my # was 352, and you wated for operater to connect you. and do you remember the party lines?? as if someone was on talking you had to wait till they got off to use phone. LO LO IN OLD !!!!:confused:
 
Crawfish you are a jerk!!! Let me tell you all what your very own Crawfish has done to me in the last two nights.

First, I can't hear my alarm clock anymore. Had it too long, need to buy a new one. Due to this fact I have to leave my cell phone on ring at night. My girlfriend sleeps in the bed with me. As a man, I hope and pray everynight that "Maria or Eileen" don't call while we are sleeping cause I'm not going to be able to explain that sh*t!!! Now....

Two nights ago Crawfish called me not once not twice but three times consecutively. Well after we had already fallen asleep mind you. Result is my girl telling me to ask my buddy not to wake us up that late since we both work day jobs. Strike 1 against Craw.

I called him yesterday afternoon to let him know this and of course, he doesn't answer. He does call me back about 10 PM though drunk and singing Journey songs on the phone while telling me he's about to burst out in tears he's feeling this song so much. Men should not sing Journey songs to other men. Strike 2 against Craw.

Roughly 2 hours later right about the time of the first post of this thread and after me and my chica have gone to bed, I get the bad news. Another call from Crawfish, by now he's quite hopped up. He just wants to tell me all about this post of his and I literally think my head is going to explode. When people call me that late I gotta fade my woman's curiosity and knowingly answer this bastards call because if I don't he will call again, and call again, and call again! Strike 3 for Crawfish he's out!

Craw, people have voicemail and texts nowadays, use them you muthaf*cker!!!!
 
Hmm..

An Indian mystic,40 years ago,told my friend....
"Dial zero and you get all the numbers."
I wonder how he handles that thought now.

FRanklin 6.????
pt <...growing up when a party line had nothing to do with
political skulduggery or ...inhaling
 
TATE said:
The people don't talk anymore, they text. Even my Armenian old lady hairdresser is texting and I feel like a dinosaur talking into my stuipid, no-keyboard cell phone.

Evolution will cause our vocal cords to atrophy, and we will then be speechless. Our mouths will only serve two functions; food and sex. Forget sex, what's on the menu??????

Chris

Ps. I remember my first phone number DI (Dickens) 9-3621
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TAylor 2410, Dayton, Ohio, 1950's. No answering machine, no nothing. It rings until someone picks it up or you hang up. :)
Man, there's some ancient MF'ers on here. Like me!
 
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jay helfert said:
TAylor 2410, Dayton, Ohio, 1950's. No answering machine, no nothing. It rings until someone picks it up or you hang up. :)
Man, there's some ancient MF'ers on here. Like me!
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Jay, didn't you have go to the train station and hand the morse code operator a note with the message you wanted to send out?
 
Tramp Steamer said:
Do I remember rotary telephones? It was the damn telephone that caused my Great Grandfather, Phineas T. Steamer, to lose the family fortune.
When Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone my Great Grandfather had the bright idea of investing all the family money into 'yelling' as a low cost alternative to long distance.
The rest, as they say, is history. ::D
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Tramp...it's time to confess.
I think your family was involved with Bell from the start.
After all,the recommended greeting was originally 'AHOY'..
definitely a nautical term....
...so just admit it...you gave some Okie,transplanted to Burbank,
9-8 and squandered the Steamer fortune.You probably still twitch
every time you hear Ronnie Allen's name.
...so just say it,you'll feel better
 
crawfish said:
Me and Runout Rodney just went on a short trip and were laughing about how funny it was to have to keep calling a motherfu#$er until he answered. No cell phones. How fun is it to check a line then, you knockin' motherfu#$ers? I wish you young guys had to deal with that shit just once. There was NO getting the guy. You just kept calling until you got him. Zipp. Wind. Zipp. Wind. Zipp Wind. Then, after six numbers, you finger slips and you gotta start all over. How'ya like it, now? I want a rotary cell phone. Nothing like fu#$in' with a guy tryin' to get the line on someone. Anyone remember? You know you do. Wind, zipp zipp. Wind, zipp zipp. Yeah. Dial that mf for about forty-five minutes.

And, oh fu#$, I got all the numbers right.............. wind, zipp, zipp, and you guessed it. BUSY. The only call waitin' is your dumbass waiting to call again. Good luck. Wind Zipp, Zipp all over. Hope he's home. Hey, hope it's not a good buzz and he left it off the hook. Wind. Zipp Zipp all over again.

Wind. Zipp ZippWind. Zipp ZippWind. Zipp ZippWind. Zipp ZippWind. Zipp ZippWind. Zipp ZippWind. Zipp ZippWind. Zipp Zipp....You youngsters don't know how good you got it. Hell, just fu#$ the line. Can't get the motherfu#$er on the horn, guess you'll have to try even. Wind, Zipp Zipp. Go and get'em.
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Have another drink...:confused:
 
NewStroke said:
Jay, didn't you have go to the train station and hand the morse code operator a note with the message you wanted to send out?
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Ha Ha! People did still send telegrams back then as a way of congratulating someone on the birth of a baby or a wedding, or condolences for a death in the family. And a Western Union telegraph person would actually deliver it to your door! "Telegram for Mr. Newstroke", they would announce when you answered the door. And if you weren't such a cheap MF'er you would give him a quarter tip. But I heard you only gave the poor guy a dime! :wink:

P.S. My mom bought something like 100 shares of Bell Telephone maybe fifty years ago. It has now split a zillion times and is now about 4,000 shares of AT&T stock! She actually has stock certificates they have sent her over the years. Will she sell it? NEVER!
 
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jay helfert said:
Ha Ha! People did still send telegrams back then as a way of congratulating someone on the birth of a baby or a wedding, or condolences for a death in the family. And a Western Union telegraph person would actually deliver it to your door! "Telegram for Mr. Newstroke", they would announce when you answered the door. And if you weren't such a cheap MF'er you would give him a quarter tip. But I heard you only gave the poor guy a dime! :wink:

P.S. My mom bought something like 100 shares of Bell Telephone maybe fifty years ago. It has now split a zillion times and is now about 4,000 shares of AT&T stock! She actually has stock certificates they have sent her over the years. Will she sell it? NEVER!
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LOL, a dime would be pushing it!
 
If the number had a zero in it,seems like it took forever for it stop so you could could zip it again ,Tell Rod I said hey:happydance: Had great colors too Beige ,green, an occasional white LOL
 
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