[Mgs] That was festive!

[Carr&Edwards]

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 at mgaguru.com>
To: "Paul Hunt" <paul.hunt1 at blueyonder.co.uk>; "David Breneman" 
<david_breneman at yahoo.com>; <mgs at 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.