MONDAY AND More about THAT PHONE!

 Today’s picture:

 

BUT for today:

‘BACK THEN’ long distance was normally phone to phone, but there was an option but it costed more. You could call ‘Person to Person’. Meaning when you were making a long distance call you might say to the operator "I want to make a person to person call to Mr. Ralph Smith at 802-333-1245."  That meant not just the number but a particular person. That cost was much more. LOL

I had something in common with Paula (RIP) our Texas blogger, She once operated a Phone Switchboard, saying Number Please? 'Switchboard operations' was one of my side duties in the USAF.

Sitting in front of The Switchboard (a large bank of holes with #’s on them). Pairs of wires below them. When a # lit up, YOU took the back wire and plugged it in and said, ‘Number Please’. When they gave you the number you took the front line and plugged it into that # hole and pulled a lever that rang the new phone. When someone answered their light came on showing contact. When it did not come on, you rang it again, etc.  Operators could listen in on any conversation, if they had time.

It was sort of a fun job. LOL

Myra mentioned her mom's 3 minute hourglass when on long distance so as to limit those calls to the base price for 3 minutes. true dat!

MA mentioned the party line, early in homes, phone party lines were common, 4 parties on one line was max, and calls were SUPPOSED to be limited to 5 minutes. As you can guess, not everyone adhered to that, causing many confrontations.

                                    1959 monthly rates in Indiana

 If a kid (or a nosey grown up) picked up the phone easy as to not cause a ‘click’, then keeping your hand over the mouthpiece, you could eavesdrop on conversations.  You can bet me and every kid I knew did that. If mama caught you, you got a whupping.

More of my history with CONFUSING phone stuff.

Once during a building project I was working with son Mark. We had a misunderstanding; having one of 'em new CELL Phones I texted an apology to Mark. That particular job was for Grandson Josh. After I arrived Josh and I were talking.  In conversation I mentioned to Josh that Mark and I had a disagreement.

“Yeah, I know Grandpa.”

“How in heck do you know?”

“You sent the text to me, grandpa!”  OUCH. I had to fix things.  LOL

With this new technology, have you ever sent something to the wrong person? Or thought you sent it BUT did not?

 Nite Shipslog

PS:  Most calls are person to person now since everyone seems to have their own #. Does it cost more? You bet! Check your phone costs against $4.40 a month,  LOL