Loved the stories! Where did you grow up? (We had a party line when I was
young, but no such helpful local operator.........)
Sarah Carr
'71 B/GT in (rural) PA
----- Original Message -----
From: "Barney Gaylord" <barneymg@mgaguru.com>
To: "Paul Hunt" <paul.hunt1@blueyonder.co.uk>; "David Breneman"
<david_breneman@yahoo.com>; <mgs@autox.team.net>
Sent: Monday, January 16, 2012 10:23 AM
Subject: Re: [Mgs] That was festive!
> Yup, been there. With the panel board switching system you had call
> forwarding, three way or conference calling, voice messaging, certain
> secretarial services, and very efficient emergency communications
> services.
>
> We were out of town for a few days once, and on return home there was a
> half hour pause before the phone rang and the operator had the messages we
> missed while we were gone. Everyone knew when we got home, but the
> operator would wait half an hour to let us get settled in before calling.
>
> Many times you didn't even have to call the operator to set up call
> forwarding. If you went to your neighbors house your calls would
> automatically be routed there, because everyone knew where you went
> without calling the oprerator. When the school bus was running late in a
> winter storm there was constant update down the line so you always knew
> where the bus was, and the kids didn't have to wait too long outside in
> the snow.
>
> We once had a fire in the old farm house. I picked up the phone, gave my
> name, said we had a fire, and hung up; The fire siren in town went off
> before I got the phone back on the hook, the fire truck was there, 5 miles
> out of town in 7 minutes, and a dozen firemen and neighbors were there
> before the truck arived. All this with an unattended fire house and well
> dispersed all volunteer fire department (and one 10 second phone call).
>
> When I was young, my mother had a heart attack a few minutes after us kids
> got on the school bus in the morning. Dad picked up the phone, said we
> need the family doctor right now, and hung up. Operator called the right
> doctor in the county seat three towns away and doctor immediately hopped
> in his car and started driving at breakneck speed. Operator called the
> preacher at our church. His wife had their car, so he walked a block to
> the highway to wave down the doctor as he was passing through town and
> hitched a ride. Not bad for primitive phone service.
>
> My dad cried when they installed the dial system in 1968, and all of the
> special services disappeared. Yes, dialing four digits would call anyone
> in town. One prefix digit plus four digits would call anyone in the
> surrouding towns. I don't think we had area codes in those days, so we
> still had to dial "0" for anything more than about 25 miles away. I don't
> remember ever dialing seven digits untill I moved into the big city where
> there were multiple switching exchanges. I think it was decades later
> before they got call forwarding back again. I still keep the old battery
> powered crank phone as a momento.
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