Some old telephone ads

Back in the day, long distance calls were $$$ per minute.

Remember when the phone would get hurriedly passed around but you just had to say a quick "Hi!"? Later there were long-distance services that you would call, key in the phone number, then key in your Passcode to get discounts on the call.

Or how about getting to your destination, finding a pay phone, calling to let it ring 3 times, then hanging up so you could get your money back?

My mother was British, and still had sibling back in England. In the early 60s, she made friends with another British woman whose husband was a ham radio operator. On Saturday mornings, my mother would go to her friend's house, the woman's husband would contact another ham radio operator in England who would call my mother's relatives and patch the phone in to his radio! Free long distance service, cobbled-on-demand.

Now it's free if you have a cell phone.
 
Growing up, I remember using one of the black wall mount rotary dial phones in the 50's. Sometimes we had to wait our turn to use it because we had a "party" line (shared with some others in our area).
Same here.

I had 5 siblings, and the woman next door liked to listen in.

So the steps were:
1-Say something mean about her
2-Wait for "HMMPH!" *click*
3-Speak freely
 
Same here.

I had 5 siblings, and the woman next door liked to listen in.

So the steps were:
1-Say something mean about her
2-Wait for "HMMPH!" *click*
3-Speak freely
I remember me and my siblings getting a swat on the butt when mom would catch us listening in on neighbours on the party line. We'd laugh and giggle, and rather than the neighbours getting mad at us, they'd say, "did you hear that so-and-so"? With the addition of... "sounds like someone else is on the line".

Makes me wonder just how many calls were listened in on back in the party line days, and I'm not just talking about kids listening in on.
 
My Aunt and Uncle were the only ones I knew who had a party line. I found it interesting.

Also, this:

We had one when I was a kid in Indiana (born the same year as that vid.)
Then we had one for a few years in Virginia, from 1963 till maybe 1965 or 1966.

Gotta love the vid. Soon people will no longer understand what it means to "dial a number."
 
My sister and I had one of those princess phones in our room, after much begging and whining. If my dad was expecting a call, he would get on the main phone and tell us to get off. If we weren't quick to do so, he'd come back on and say he was on the way to our room to rip it out of the wall. We got off.

And yes, the numbers lit up.
 
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