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Until I was in about third grade we still had rotary dial phones with only two numbers and a letter for identification. You dialed the operator and she answered, you said the number and she hand-plugged your line into the line of the person you were calling.
It was fun to visit the phone office and see the switchboard with all the criss-crossing lines which she had to unplug when the conversation was over.
This, of course, made the phone operator one of the most informed people in town. Even if she didn't listen in she knew who called whom.
I loved that the operator was my aunt and thought she had a very important job. She was the person to call for all kinds of information. Whenever I came home from school and my mom wasn't there I'd just call the operator and she'd tell me that Mom was over at Mrs. X's house having coffee.
DH tells me that once they were singing "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" and couldn't remember one line to the song so they called the operator and she told them what it was.
Does anyone remember phone numbers like this? Pershing which was PE4-0506. Capital was downtown, it was CA.
This is just the mnemonic that was fashionable at the time. Same old 7-digit #, but the first 2 digits were the first 2 letters of a "code word". So as a kid our number 843-4353 was called out on the phone THornhill 3 43-53. Back in the day you ended up talking to actual live phone operators, perhaps this was to avoid having to say a long string of numbers (for whatever reason).
This thread should be sent to the Smithsonian. I remember a lot of what people have shared here. Probably most fondly I recall playing in the fields, woods, and sand hills near my house growing up. Used to play all day long. I remember the fresh air, cool shade, hot sand, drinking from the water hose, and my dad spraying down the brick of our house when it got really hot in the summers. I remember the scent of that.
There is a novel by Steven King titled 11/22/63. In it a character travels back in time to the 50’s and 60’s. It’s typical, wonky King, and at times riveting. But it’s worth the read if only for the way he describes the world back then. Sort of like the posts in this great thread.
This thread should be sent to the Smithsonian. I remember a lot of what people have shared here. Probably most fondly I recall playing in the fields, woods, and sand hills near my house growing up. Used to play all day long. I remember the fresh air, cool shade, hot sand, drinking from the water hose, and my dad spraying down the brick of our house when it got really hot in the summers. I remember the scent of that.
There is a novel by Steven King titled 11/22/63. In it a character travels back in time to the 50’s and 60’s. It’s typical, wonky King, and at times riveting. But it’s worth the read if only for the way he describes the world back then. Sort of like the posts in this great thread.
Haven't read 11.22.63 but I watched the TV series. It's on Hulu, and it was nicely done.
This thread reminds me of Ray Bradbury's novel "Dandelion Wine" - those who like such things should read it:
“And there, row upon row, with the soft gleam of flowers opened at morning, with the light of this June sun glowing through a faint skin of dust, would stand the dandelion wine. Peer through it at the wintry day - the snow melted to grass, the trees were reinhabitated with bird, leaf, and blossoms like a continent of butterflies breathing on the wind. And peering through, color sky from iron to blue.
Hold summer in your hand, pour summer in a glass, a tiny glass of course, the smallest tingling sip for children; change the season in your veins by raising glass to lip and tilting summer in”
My mom had a crock sitting on the stove, full of bacon grease. When cooking oil was needed, it came from there, and after frying, the surplus went back in there. It got replenished Sunday when bacon was cooked for breakfast. It was there when I was born, and still there when I left for college, never cleaned or emptied.
A couple more memories of people who came to your house:
For awhile we had "the egg man" who delivered eggs form his farm.
And I'd almost forgotten the insurance man with his debit book. Life insurance sold to people of modest means could be paid weekly and he came around to collect it.
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