Puzzle Description:

Before mobile phones, when you could take the phone off the hook in order to have time to yourself...

#1: Gator (Gator) on May 14, 2010 [SPOILER]

Ha ha...you could turn the cell phone off... :)

Right on Gator - if time to yourself is as important as it is to me, you would turn off all your phones. Very nice puzzle Katherine.

That was also before the phone company made it to where it would automatically call 911 emergency response if the phone was left off the hook for an extended period of time.

I knew some phones were made special to do that but didn't realize all phones did this.

ah yes
the incredible floating receiver
haha

LOL, Bugaboo.

Fun solve, Katherine.

only problem with that Katherine; was that terrible noise the phone would emit (i once hid it in my sock drawer)
Great puzzle, brought back mems :)

Excellent. Anybody remember party lines?

I sure do and I remember when my Grandma had one of those phones like on Petticoat Junction where you had to talk to the operator to make the call!

oh yeah... i had no dial even and could listen to others talk :D

And phone numbers began with a prefix of the first two letters of a work, like SYcamore3-4567. Remember the Glenn Miller song called PEnnsylvania 6-5000? You could tell what neighborhood people lived in by the prefix.

Thanks for this puzzle, Katherine!

There was a ringer on top of the phone and a crank on the side. You cranked the crank to make a "long" or "short" ring. Everyone on the party line had their own "ring". Ours was "one long and two shorts".

The phone rang in everyone's house so everyone knew who was getting a call. Lots of the neighbors listened in on conversations which was called "rubbering in". Lol...people talked in pre-arranged codes sometimes to keep certain information private.

This was the type of phone which was a wooden rectangular box and had a speaking "cone" on the box and a separate ear "cone" to hold to one ear.

I used to drag a chair over and ring the ringer for fun. That didn't go over well. I was scolded more than once for doing it. Of course all the neighbors would hear that one l-o-o-o-o-o-ng ring and say..."Hmmmmpfh...Esther's little girl must be visiting again. What a hoyden!"

:-)

i saw that phone once, when visiting my aunt in penn.
unlike you JoDeen, i was a good boy :D

what great memories. party line -- I was out of town and trying to call my mom because my friend was in an accident. I kept picking up the phone to see if the line was clear. There were 2 teenagers talking and they knew someone was on the line but the girl blamed it on her little brother and would yell at him. I'm sure he pleaded innocent but his sister probably never believed him.

How about just lowering the ringer volume ... That works for me.

Unplugging the phone works too.

Goto next topic

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