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Thought someone might enjoy this

I learned today that some people are especially odd. I was listening to the radio today when local dispatch reported a 911 hangup at an elevator in the local area. About 5 minutes later it happened again. I asked my boss what was going on and he showed me a report of how several individuals had opened the "EMERGENCY USE ONLY" phone box in the elevator so they could try to call their buddies as they had no reception. They don't realize that the phone is a single line phone straight to emergency since it has no buttons. When did parents stop teaching kids what EMERGENCY USE ONLY means? This is a regularly occurring thing at work.
 
Our Gun Club has the old rotary dial phone. Well after a Firearms Saftey class some youth invariably need to call for a ride. Watching them trying to TOUCH dial the thing is as funny as it gets. It amazes me that when you tell them to ROTATE the Dial they think your pulling their leg.
 
I thought my boss was pulling my leg when he told me what the hang ups where from. I wouldn't believe him until he showed me the police reports.
 
CJ6 said:
Our Gun Club has the old rotary dial phone. Well after a Firearms Saftey class some youth invariably need to call for a ride. Watching them trying to TOUCH dial the thing is as funny as it gets. It amazes me that when you tell them to ROTATE the Dial they think your pulling their leg.

When I was a kid in the early 1940's, we still had a phone without even a dial. Yor took the earpiece off the hook and an operator came on the line and said, Number please." You gave her the number and she made the connection. Along about 1946 Ma Bell replaced that phone with a rotory dial type. The first time I used it, I waited and waited for the operator to ask for the number. I finally figured it out that you had to spin the dial. :-[
Paul B.
 
Thats a sign on how old where getting ;) Our club house at the gun club has the same kind of phone you guys have but i have not seen that happen yet.
CJ6 said:
Our Gun Club has the old rotary dial phone. Well after a Firearms Saftey class some youth invariably need to call for a ride. Watching them trying to TOUCH dial the thing is as funny as it gets. It amazes me that when you tell them to ROTATE the Dial they think your pulling their leg.
 
Paul,
That is way funny you mentioned that, I am wayyyy younger than you but when I was little we lived in a rural area (still live there) and we had a switch board operator, I don't know how many people were on that old service and I was to little to remember how you called to town, I guess the switch board operator did it for you, our number was two longs and a short with the crank, when the phone went out the locals would drive around and go horse back with there fence stretchers and find the break in the overhead wires that stretched from tree to tree, poles or whatever. When you started the repair you did it in a hurry the old timers tell me because if someone tried to make a call you received a heavy DC electrical shock! Then about the time I started the first grade we got the dial phone on the wall, you only had to dial the last 4 digits of the number if it was in your prefix, ours was 3366, we had party lines, for you young people that means there were several people that shared the same phone wires, there were three others on our line,and two of the women were real gossip tellers so you would pick up and listen,...no there still talking, so after a while you would just butt in and say Pearl I need to use the phone please! I am going to be 48 years old this year and it only seems like yesterday we had our party lines, days would slip past sometimes without using it, now we have our Dick Tracy cell phones tethered to our sides, we cannot be without them, there the first thing we grab as we head out the door. When you go to a restaurant or just about any where EVERYBODY is using there cells so no it doesn't surprise me one little bit that the younger crowd would know what a emergency phone was really for ::)
Wayne.
 
Yea we had a party line when I was a kid in east Texas. Moved to the big city and our number started with HO then 4 numbers. Later we got the 713 area code for the whole city. Now there are many area codes in Houston. My first cell phone was for the car and was like a briefcase. It's amazing the changes we have seen in technology over the years.
 
In the early days,those operators knew everything going on.You could ask for your Aunt's number,and the operator would tell you,"she's not home,she's at your uncle Bill's house".Want me to call there?Small towns are great.A friend still had a nice Oak crank phone, into the mid 60s.
 
Speaking of crank phones I got a set with wires at my last job because my platoon sgt did not want to deal with figureing out what to do with them. Best of all they work! Now I just have to find a place for them in my apt.
 

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