{"id":6150,"date":"2016-05-19T09:32:31","date_gmt":"2016-05-19T14:32:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/?p=6150"},"modified":"2016-05-19T19:43:01","modified_gmt":"2016-05-20T00:43:01","slug":"6150","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/?p=6150","title":{"rendered":"Phone Booth Memories"},"content":{"rendered":"
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“What’s this?”, you of a younger persuasion might ask upon viewing this picture. Why, this is what the 1960’s looked like! (The 1970’s too, but they were kind of depressing for being mostly a lethargic, warmed-over version of the 1960s.) These here are the remains of honest-to-goodness phone booths! Yes, once upon a time, people in public places depended upon coin-operated telephones to stay in touch with the world. And “Ma Bell”, which is what we lovingly called the AT&T telephone monopoly back then, generously provided its patrons with a glass-enclosed private area (a “phone booth”) with a small seat (which you can see here) and a little desk surface just beneath the phone box. <\/p>\n

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Ma Bell actually believed that its customers were entitled to some privacy while using its facilities, and thus provided closable doors on most of its phone booths. OK, you could still be seen through the glass windows, but these doors were fairly substantial and worked quite well to block out the surrounding noise. They also kept your own words from being overheard, and if placed outdoors, they would cut down on the windy winter chill or driving rain. (Later on, Ma Bell decided that it was treating its customers too well, and the open phone kiosk became more prominent — you can see the general arrangement of these in the top photo, between the two old-school booths). As to the shot on the right — this is where the phone box used to be, with its slots on top for quarters and dimes and nickles to pay for the call, along with a rotary dial and hand receiver attached via a sturdy metal cord. You still see the connection wires dangling out, faithfully awaiting the call signals that will never come. And note that the soft florescent overhead booth lamps are still lit in the top photo, as though it was just another day in 1967.<\/p>\n

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And what’s this? Well, once upon a time, people actually depended upon printed books (called “phonebooks”) to find other peoples’ phone numbers. Ma Bell was often nice enough to place a few for public use right next to (or sometimes within) its phone booths. Here are some last remnants, probably published in the early 1980s, awaiting disposal.<\/p>\n

For a time in the 20th century, after American became convinced that instant voice communication over large distances was a good thing, but well before cell phones and smart phones progressed from the realms of science fiction stories, phone booths were essential parts of daily life in America. Hope that you enjoyed this little “phone call” from the past!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“What’s this?”, you of a younger persuasion might ask upon viewing this picture. Why, this is what the 1960’s looked like! (The 1970’s too, but they were kind of depressing for being mostly a lethargic, warmed-over version of the 1960s.) These here are the remains of honest-to-goodness phone booths! Yes, once upon a time, people […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20,5,23],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6150"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6150"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6150\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6153,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6150\/revisions\/6153"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6150"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6150"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6150"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}