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Posted: 4/27/2021 7:32:48 PM EST
[#1]
My grandma was one of the old school Bell switch operators.
Back then you didn’t even own the phone in your house. Be rude to one of the operators and they would send a technician out to take your phone away. After a couple weeks or months if you were a real dick head they might let you have it back. |
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Posted: 4/27/2021 7:33:00 PM EST
[#2]
Quote HistoryQuoted: HA! 
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Posted: 4/27/2021 7:33:19 PM EST
[#3]
Quote HistoryQuoted: Wow, where was that? It's been years since I've seen a functioning payphone. Quote HistoryQuoted: Quoted: I've used one in the past year. Wow, where was that? It's been years since I've seen a functioning payphone. 
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Posted: 4/27/2021 7:33:28 PM EST
[#4]
In college, all we had were a bank of pay phones in a common area. Nobody had a phone in their room.
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Posted: 4/27/2021 7:33:32 PM EST
[#5]
OK. Who fudged the 100% poll we were having?
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Posted: 4/27/2021 7:33:41 PM EST
[#6]
Local park.
With a dial tone, too 
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Posted: 4/27/2021 7:33:43 PM EST
[#7]
The earpiece was always super gross. Greasy and stunk like old cheap cologne.
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Posted: 4/27/2021 7:34:16 PM EST
[#8]
1998 on the SE corner of the Riverside Dr heb in Austin was the last time..... can't remember who I called though.
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Posted: 4/27/2021 7:35:14 PM EST
[#9]
Ah, the joys of working all over the country, and having to call in to a field office on a pay phone, to have everyone out at lunch.
Those were the days. Then again, when you got off, the day was truly over. |
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Posted: 4/27/2021 7:36:08 PM EST
[#10]
Quote HistoryQuoted: I still remember what they SMELL like. Weird combination of phenolic plastic and stale cigarette smoke. exactly
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Posted: 4/27/2021 7:36:31 PM EST
[#11]
I remember when the barracks used to have a pay phone on every floor. Used to use it every night.
Hauled around a big bag of quarters, but later on got a calling card. |
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Posted: 4/27/2021 7:36:52 PM EST
[#12]
Quote HistoryQuoted: After we were done with sportsing practice we would go to the pay phone and ask the operator to make a collect call. After three rings we hung up. That let my parents know it was time to come and get us. This stuff is bringing back a bunch of mammaries. |
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Posted: 4/27/2021 7:37:09 PM EST
[#13]
Used to use them often for work back when all we had were pagers. We had company issued calling cards back then for making phone calls, usually calling to check audix voice messages.
ETA Thank God for cell phones. It sucked donkey balls back then installing equipment on a contruction site with no phones and you needed to talk to tech support. Driving back and forth to a gas station down the street for the pay phone. |
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Posted: 4/27/2021 7:37:24 PM EST
[#14]
 Operator - Jim Croce |
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Posted: 4/27/2021 7:39:19 PM EST
[#15]
How many numbers that are still in service could we remember.
911 811 411 I don’t know any Numbers for anything useful these days. |
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Posted: 4/27/2021 7:39:28 PM EST
[#16]
Penny loafers, with a dime in the slot in case you needed to make an emergency call.
Yes. 10 cents. |
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Posted: 4/27/2021 7:39:28 PM EST
[#17]
Quote HistoryQuoted: Wow, I'd almost forgotten about that. Anybody remember Greenleaf or Harrison? |
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Posted: 4/27/2021 7:40:22 PM EST
[#18]
She has probably never "rolled up a window" either .
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Posted: 4/27/2021 7:41:12 PM EST
[#19]
Collect call home.
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Posted: 4/27/2021 7:42:09 PM EST
[#20]
Quote HistoryQuoted: How many numbers that are still in service could we remember. 911 811 411 I don’t know any Numbers for anything useful these days. My grandparents had the same number from 1969 to up to a few months ago. I was a tad annoyed that my uncle didn’t have them port the number instead of letting them give my grandpa a new number with his cell phone. |
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Posted: 4/27/2021 7:42:31 PM EST
[#21]
Quote HistoryNo shit. I was a little kid. |
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Posted: 4/27/2021 7:43:51 PM EST
[#22]
I used them quite a bit, mostly through the 70s. Here's the one I used the most;
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Posted: 4/27/2021 7:43:53 PM EST
[#23]
Quote HistoryQuoted: A quarter ? I remember when it was a dime. Ditto this. |
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Posted: 4/27/2021 7:44:29 PM EST
[#24]
Now that I think about it, we actually have one. It used to be hooked up in the kitchen. Now it's downstairs sitting with some other stuff we never found a place for after we moved.
Similar to this  Attached File |
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Posted: 4/27/2021 7:45:34 PM EST
[#25]
Quote HistoryQuoted: After we were done with sportsing practice we would go to the pay phone and ask the operator to make a collect call. After three rings we hung up. That let my parents know it was time to come and get us. Hahaha. Did not realize that was a thing. |
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Posted: 4/27/2021 7:46:23 PM EST
[#26]
Quote HistoryQuoted: Yeah. I’d wipe the receiver off on my shirt first though. eww. 
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Posted: 4/27/2021 7:54:13 PM EST
[#27]
I remember our phone number was Greenleaf (GR for short) 5579....that why the dials had letters on them. Harrison (HR) is the only other one I can think of right now.
Weren't no area codes back then. It was hard enough when they replaced GR with 3 digits. GR-5579 became 477-5579. It was several years before the area code system came to be and you could direct dial a long distance number.
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Posted: 4/27/2021 7:55:21 PM EST
[#28]
Quote HistoryQuoted: A quarter ? I remember when it was a dime. Me too. |
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Posted: 4/27/2021 7:55:38 PM EST
[#29]
Quote HistoryQuoted: I used them quite a bit, mostly through the 70s. Here's the one I used the most; https://i.postimg.cc/YqTS8MsM/Moheskys-1.jpg https://i.postimg.cc/htxt56kx/Moheskys-7.jpg |
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Posted: 4/27/2021 7:57:54 PM EST
[#30]
Those pre-paid calling cards were what I used to call the office when I first started working there if I was at home since we didn't have long distance and the office was in another area code.
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Posted: 4/27/2021 7:58:34 PM EST
[#31]
All the time when growing up. Learned the trick where you call your mom collect to pick you up at the school parking lot:
“You have a collect call from: Mom pick me up ” |
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Posted: 4/27/2021 7:59:33 PM EST
[#32]
Last few got pulled here 4 or 5 years back
Used to be every few miles on roadside, for the Amish. |
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Posted: 4/27/2021 8:06:03 PM EST
[#33]
I worked for the telephone company on Kodiak when they decommissioned them all. We would always have to replace the handsets on the ones in front of tonys bar and the one by the boat harbor. They were money making pigs, drunk fishermen would keep shoveling quarters in after they were plumb full of quarters. You would pop them open and quarters would be spilling out of the guts and inner workings and jammed them up. Real tempting not to take a handful but the company was known to spy on you when you were doing the rounds and try to get you shitcanned.
Anyways they decommed them all and we loaded 50 of them and hauled them to the dump so I asked my foreman if I could keep one or two, and I kept the two I mentioned and wired them up to work as normal phones. They are just sitting around gathering dust. The company is somewhat interested in putting on up as a display piece so I will give one back if they want but the other one is mine fair and square. People offer me money for them from time to time but Im just going to hang on to this one. |
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Posted: 4/27/2021 8:16:42 PM EST
[#34]
Quote HistoryQuoted: Is it still there? Quote HistoryQuoted: Quoted: I used them quite a bit, mostly through the 70s. Here's the one I used the most; https://i.postimg.cc/YqTS8MsM/Moheskys-1.jpg https://i.postimg.cc/htxt56kx/Moheskys-7.jpg I haven't been there in a long time, so I don't know. (I moved about 150mi from there). I'm supposed to go by there some time in June, but I won't know until then. |
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Posted: 4/27/2021 8:18:26 PM EST
[#35]
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Posted: 4/27/2021 8:23:44 PM EST
[#36]
Last time was 2005 I want to say. Road tripped on a whim up to Michigan Tech to visit a friend moving in, didnt know anyone's number but no one useful for the situation besides my parents. Had my parents call my friend's parents, get me his dorm address, and called me back at the pay phone.
I finally got a cell phone 2007 I think. |
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Posted: 4/27/2021 8:24:04 PM EST
[#37]
10 cents local. Please deposit ? for long distance.
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Posted: 4/27/2021 8:25:39 PM EST
[#38]
Had a beeper and a roll of quarters every day for work
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Posted: 4/27/2021 8:26:08 PM EST
[#39]
Yes. Hell I even remember the last one I've seen. Ft Dix NJ (didn't use it). It was 2013. When I was back again in 2014 it was gone.
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Posted: 4/27/2021 8:27:52 PM EST
[#40]
Quote HistoryQuoted: A quarter ? I remember when it was a dime. Yep, and being pissed about the increase. |
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Posted: 4/27/2021 8:30:10 PM EST
[#41]
Quoted: So I was just over at my SIL's house and was having fun giving some hell to my niece while she had friends over. She is 19 bless her heart and at one point she started to complain so I gave her a quarter and said "call someone who cares" The dumbfounded look on their faces turned into a whole family conversation about how things "use" to be. My niece and her friends thought we were lying about having to pay for long distance service back in the days of MCI and "pin drop" AT&T This got me thinking.. How many here are too young to remember what it was like to have to use a payphone. Or if some of you have even seen one before. Ask your niece if she's ever wondered where the term "drop a dime" on someone came from. |
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Posted: 4/27/2021 8:31:06 PM EST
[#42]
I'll put it this way... my mom used to get a lot of pay phone collect calls from pleasecomegetmefromtheoldgasstation.
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Posted: 4/27/2021 8:31:28 PM EST
[#43]
I remember years ago on the Baltimore-Washington Parkway as you were coming into B'more there was a "car phone lot".
It was a parking lot with payphones mounted close to the spots and down lower so you could use them from your car. |
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Posted: 4/27/2021 8:34:29 PM EST
[#44]
Quote HistoryQuoted: A quarter ? I remember when it was a dime. This |
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Posted: 4/27/2021 8:36:35 PM EST
[#45]
Quote HistoryQuoted: A quarter ? I remember when it was a dime. And a slide rule, typewriter, Super 8 movies, mimeograph machines (oh, the smell), carbon paper, phones that had a rotary dial, travelers checks, vacuum tubes, a TV you had to go and change the channel by turning a knob, etc. If there is ever a great reset, people will look back and wish they knew what the boomers did about "old tech". |
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Posted: 4/27/2021 8:38:50 PM EST
[#46]
When i was in highschool there was one payphone. One time these two BIG gals got in a fight over whos turn it was to use the phone and one ended up getting tossed through a window.
They took the phone out after that... |
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Posted: 4/27/2021 8:40:24 PM EST
[#47]
Ashtray in car full of change.
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Posted: 4/27/2021 8:40:25 PM EST
[#48]
Payphones used to provide hours of entertainment
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Posted: 4/27/2021 8:40:26 PM EST
[#49]
I have. Use to say, "It's your dime" inreference to it being a dime to make a call.
Even used one once to get a unit to take a custody I just fought to the popo house. No cell phone (they were around, but I wouldn't have one). |
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Posted: 4/27/2021 8:40:34 PM EST
[#50]
Yes, but it's been years. I remember when the SAT paperwork you were supposed to bring for the test had a spot to tape down enough coins for a phone call to get a ride home after the test
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