Do you remember when (Raleigh, Fayetteville: house, elementary school, living)

[pitroad]

1. you had to actually remember telephone numbers

2. telephone numbers started with letters (where I grew up we had MAdison 62, JUstice 58, ULysses 86) .... what were the exchanges here in Raleigh ??

3. Party lines (can you imagine living like that today) there would be bloodshed

[m378]

Ugh...I'm old.

4. Calling your friend's house and saying "Hi this is <name>, is <name> home?"

5. Actually calling adults "Mr. <LastName>" or "Mrs. <LastName>"

Why don't kids do that anymore? If anything I always hear Mr./Mrs. <FirstName>, which is just weird to me.

[TheBigKahunaNC]

I remember moving to a real small town around 1980, and being amazed at only having to dial the last 5 digits of the 7 digit phone number. I came from a slightly larger town where there were several prefix numbers, the first three or the seven. Everyone near this small town had the same first three numbers. I also had to memorize a lot of phone numbers. I still know a lot of my childhood phone numbers. I bet I don't know 3 or 4 current numbers!

[poppydog]

I grew up in Fayetteville and though when I was little we didn't use the letter/name thing anymore I remember my mom talking about HUdson being one of them. Not sure if it was our phone number or one of her best friends — just remember HUdson.

[RedZin]

We always had a private line, but I think we only had to dial the last 5 digits until I was in junior high.

One of our neighbors when I was in elementary school had a party line. That was weird.

[siameseifyoupls]

I grew up in Morehead City. Our prefix was PArk. We never had a party line, but my relatives in upper Michigan did. One ring. Two rings. Seems I remember long and short, too, but I could be making that up.

[adams_aj]

I remember picking up the phone and asking Sarah to connect me to whomever I was calling. .

[Poggly Woggly]

Originally Posted by pitroad

2. telephone numbers started with letters (where I grew up we had MAdison 62, JUstice 58, ULysses 86) .... what were the exchanges here in Raleigh ??

3. Party lines (can you imagine living like that today) there would be bloodshed

Raleigh was TEmple 83 and VAnce 82.

We did have a party line. When we were kids we would pick up the phone very quietly and listen to others on that line. We would eventually start giggling and blow our cover

[twingles]

we didn't have a party line but ours did start with letters.

How about living with a busy signal (no call waiting - one of my friends got it when we were in high school and she was the ONLY ONE who had it for a couple of years - she was the point person for all plans since you could always get thru to her house).
As a side note, my mom still can't deal with call waiting - if she gets a beep she seems to think that the phone is going to explode after 5 seconds if she doesn't IMMEDIATELY take the new call. I love to toy with her on this - I always say "well, don't go yet, there was another thing I need to talk to you about" LOL

How about one phone, with a cord, in a central location in the house where every other person in the house could hear everything?

[don6170]

Originally Posted by pitroad

2. telephone numbers started with letters (where I grew up we had MAdison 62, JUstice 58, ULysses 86) .... what were the exchanges here in Raleigh ??

The letters were usually some sort of abbreviation for the part of town where the Central Office was located and the numbers corresponded to the letters on the dial pad (eg MAdison - M=6, A=2). Here is an interesting site on the history of phones for Atlanta - I have not seen similar for the Triangle area.
Atlanta Telephone History