Sure! That's when the name of the exchange was used. It's been a long time but I remember using SWx-xxxx, SW being the Swathmore exchange, and you didn't give the phone number as SWx when speaking, but you'd say Swathsmore X....

 

 

Did anyone have a party line at home?

 

That's how you know you're a boring human being.

 

i remember having a party line, that was weird. i've had a cell phone since 92 and it sits on the table by the door. i grab it when i walk out, but hardly ever turn it on. if i'm gonna be gone along time i will turn it on. i do carry it with me on the bike. only a very few people have my cell number and it may not get truned on for a week at a time.

 

I must be getting old... my first cross country on a bike was in '74 and I remember crossing the mojave desert and thinking if I break down I'm screwed. How was I going to call for help...

A couple of years ago while crossing the mojave with the wife on our way to Mardi Gras in the pickup my wife used my cell phone with Skype to call her sister in England and chatted for FREE with video to boot while we drove along...

Times have changed

 

Yep I remember the party line... pickup the phone to make a call and the neighbor is on the line talking with someone... God I'm getting old...

 

I carry two cell phones - one personal and one for work. The work one sits in my bag when I'm not actually at work or travelling for work. They are both a blessing and a curse.

There are still a few payphones around. One at John Wayne Airport always means I'm finally home when I see it.

Was with my neice who is 3 recently and she was baffled by a phone booth we came across. It was pretty funny trying to give a satisfactory explanation as to why it existed.

Part of what makes riding great is forgetting about your phone. Couldn't use it if you wanted to. It's just there for emergencies for me.

I remember telling my parents I didn't have a dime when they'd get mad I didn't call and check in. I probably spent all my change on an ice cream or something.

Remember the super long phone cords that could almost reach anywhere in the house and would get tangled so bad they might as well have been two feet instead of twenty?

 

Made it to California and back on the exact same bike. No cell, no gps, just a paper map and a credit card.

Upgraded my dumb phone last year, fought it forever.

It did pay off last weekend, out for a ride and a storm was brewing. It was moving SE (not normal) checked the radar and made my way around it (snuck between two storms). When I got on the backside I saw my first tornado in 50 years. Would of sucked to drive into that.

 

Funny that payphones in airports have been mentioned - I took this picture last week in Chicago, because it's such a rare thing to see today:



The beautiful thing about technology is that you can use it as much, or as little, as you want.

Some people really are a slave to their cell phones. When I work a "reserve schedule" (basically, on-call - if they need me, they call, I have to be available, and at the airport ready for up to 5 days on the road within 90 minutes), there are 12-hour blocks during the day where I NEED to have my phone on, available, and turned up. So, my OL and I sit down for lunch, the phone comes out of the pocket, and is on the table. We're in the middle of knockin' the boots? Sorry, if it's in that 12-hour time frame, I have to answer it. It's just the way it is.

When I'm "off", my ringer pretty much stays off. I called Sprint, and they've already turned the voicemail off on my phone. So, if you call and I don't answer, it'll ring 30 times, then tell you I'm unavailable. However, I still have to keep my phone close-by all the time. I'm on the road at least half of the time. My OL works out of town, in the Philly/South Jersey area. So, every Monday, she gets on an airplane and flies to work. And, at the end of every week, she flies home. Needless to say, keeping in touch electronically is important in our world, since we'll often go several weeks without seeing each other. Plus, my 18 year-old daughter is going off to college 600 miles away, and we keep in touch electronically as well. My sister is in the Army, and communicates almost exclusively electronically. And, my mother isn't getting any younger, and she lives 700 miles away. Hell, the whole world is electronic!

Now, if I worked over at the building around the corner that I've worked at for 20 years, 2 miles from the street that I grew up in, around the corner from all of my family, etc, etc, then I could drive home at the end of the day, and not turn my phone on. But, not all of us have a life that's "that" simple. LOL!