This month there are two “Phone Days.” Well, actually, only one day, but two separate, but related subjects. March 10 is International Find a Phone Booth Day and National Landline Day. Both events celebrate telephones that are, or soon will become, a “thing of the past.”
Well of course that got me to thinking about telephones.
Today, if we want to talk to someone that isn’t standing right beside us (sometimes even if they are right beside us) we call them on our mobil phone or send them a text.
When I was young, things didn’t work that way. When I was young, there was a telephone booth on just about every corner. I remember in Maysville, we had a pay phone attached to a pole downtown. these phones looked like big black boxes, with slots at the top for nickels, dimes and quarters. They had a rotary dial and a slot at the bottom where money could be returned to the caller. The phones only accepted coins — you couldn’t use paper money.
You had to know everyone’s telephone number, or look it up in a phone book. There was usually a big phone book hanging by a chain on the pay phone — they were usually torn and dirty because they were used by everyone.
If you didn’t have money, you could “call collect.” You’d place a call through the operator who, in turn, asked the person on the receiving end whether he or she would accept the charge. A lot of people used the “call collect” method of letting someone know they’d arrived at their destination. If that was the plan, the collect call would be rejected — it was a good way to indicate that someone had arrived safely without the cost of a call.
When I was a kid I remember going from pay phone to pay phone to see if someone had left money in the coin return slot.
Of course today, telephone booths and pay phones are quickly fading away. I’ve been told there are several phone booths in our area, but I don’t remember seeing them. For me, telephone booths are one of the things that bring back memories. If I could find one, and I had the room, I’d like to have one in my office.
But as long as pay phones and telephones still exist and for those of us who still have land line phones at home — it’s a day to celebrate.
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