Remenissing About Days of Yore

The earliest I remember our number was (Jackson)(JA2 1727, that changed to 522-1727 where it remained until my dad passed in 2017. I remember the older kind of phone in my grandma's house, but I can't say if it worked or not, as I wasn't allowed to use the phone at her house. I remember party lines, but I can't recall how many people shared our line. In our old house we only had one phone jack in the kitchen on the wall. Then we moved when I was about 3, and I remember it being such a big house there were three whole phone jacks!! One in the kitchen on the wall, one upstairs in the hallway on the wall, and one in my parents' bedroom where a fancy sleek phone sat on her nightstand. I thought we were rich then!! The phone in the kitchen had such a long cord that it reached allllllllll the way into my bedroom......barely, and it reached outside the back door too.

Then came touch tone phones, which made dialing super easy. And Fiber Optics....ooooh we were fancy then!!

Then there were phone plans with free long distance after 9pm, then after 7pm, along with friends and family plans that allowed you call a certain number of people long distance for free (this all came after I was grown and married).

Then came PC's and dialup internet....hello AOL and Compuserv. You've Got Mail.
And even then, I remember telephones were a luxury, and not a need. I remember when times were lean, we wouldn't have a phone until we caught up on everything else. Even today, my phone bill, and internet is paid after everything else. ...unfortunately we have reached the days where phones are considered needs and not luxuries to many people. Hard times are coming around and people are in for a real shocker, I fear. But I digress. ;-)

I grew up in a very rural part of Indiana. The one phone it town was located at the general store/post office. You only got a call when someone died or there was an emergency. Other than that there were long, hand-written letters. We had everything.

The youth in this country don't realize how good they have it. I know many of you won't believe this, but when I was young and wanted to change the channel on our black and white TV, I'd actually have to get up off the sofa and walk to the TV. Then I'd physically have to turn a knob to get one of the three airing stations CBS/NBC/ABC. And the TV was at least 10 feet away! It was a living hell!

There were some good things in those days though. I actually knew how to use a telephone. It had a round dial on it, you stuck your finger in the holes and turned the dial and the person you wanted would answer. And, instead of paying for your own cell phone and a $100 monthly fee, there were pay phones every second or third block. If you needed to make a call away from home it would only cost a quarter.

And, when's the last time you went to a gas station with $2 in your pocket and told the smartly uniformed attendant to fill er up. Not only would he fill it up, but he'd ask to check your tires, oil, and clean your windshield.

Come to think of it, maybe we had it better than the youth of today?

The youth in this country don't realize how good they have it. I know many of you won't believe this, but when I was young and wanted to change the channel on our black and white TV, I'd actually have to get up off the sofa and walk to the TV. Then I'd physically have to turn a knob to get one of the three airing stations CBS/NBC/ABC. And the TV was at least 10 feet away! It was a living hell!

There were some good things in those days though. I actually knew how to use a telephone. It had a round dial on it, you stuck your finger in the holes and turned the dial and the person you wanted would answer. And, instead of paying for your own cell phone and a $100 monthly fee, there were pay phones every second or third block. If you needed to make a call away from home it would only cost a quarter.

And, when's the last time you went to a gas station with $2 in your pocket and told the smartly uniformed attendant to fill er up. Not only would he fill it up, but he'd ask to check your tires, oil, and clean your windshield.

Come to think of it, maybe we had it better than the youth of today?

The youth of today do not have it good. Convenient crap aint good. A world of lies aint good. The ridiculous inflation aint good.
They swim in a world of Dung

I had a vintage/antique shop, and hung a black wall mount rotary dial phone on the wall. SO many kids asked their parents what this item was for.. and so many parents had the wrong answers! I heard everything from ' it's a radio' to 'it's an old fashioned calculator, called an adding machine'! Some young parents knew what it was, but not how to use it. They were often quite astounded when I told them what it was and how to operate it! Good times

When I was in the first grade, my father brought home an electrical four function calculator, add/subtract/multiply/divide. It weighed about 15 pounds and had typewriter style keys. You'd type in the numbers and then press the function key. The mechanical gears in the machine would go 'kerchunk/kerchunk' but they'd come up with the correct answer after about 6 or seven seconds.

When I was in the military, we had 'copying machines'. You'd use a typewriter to type info on 'wax paper'. Then this wax paper was attached to a cylindrical drum, filled with ink. The drum would rotate and ink would seep through the wax paper and on to sheets of paper as they were inserted.

When I was in the service, I was in a bowling league. Bowling was big in those days, I'm not sure it's still around. But one day, a teammate brought a 'four function' light emitting diode calculater to help keep score. It added/subtracted/multiplied/divided and the answer showed up in bright red leds. It cost him $600, an equivalent of $thousands today.

Times have surely changed. But have they really changed for the better? I was just as happy with simple things in those days as I am now.

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I grew up in a very rural part of Indiana. The one phone it town was located at the general store/post office. You only got a call when someone died or there was an emergency. Other than that there were long, hand-written letters. We had everything.

The youth of today do not have it good. Convenient crap aint good. A world of lies aint good. The ridiculous inflation aint good.
They swim in a world of Dung

Society of today is a downward spiral. Ever see 'The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagony'? Kurt Weil