When there was only one phone Co.

fuzzybuddy

fuzzybuddy

SF VIP
Location
The Sticks, Northeast PA.
I saw an article about Lily Tomlin. She used to do "Ernestine", the phone operator, on Laugh In. She would threaten everybody, because "we are the phone company". Her skit was funny, but MaBell wasn't. If your plug got pulled, you had to crawl back, it was the only phone company in town. I know I might have missed a payment or two, and who didn't forget to sign the check every once in a while.ernestine.jpg
 

When I was starting out I remember rushing to the telephone company or the power company to make a last minute payment, LOL!

This is an old postcard picture of Ma Bells state of the art switchboard in my city. They had 9,600 lines and handled 60,000 local calls a day with that equipment!

Telephone Co. 2.jpg
 
I remember getting my first phone. It was probably 1979. I went downtown to the phone company. Some nice lady helped me select my phone and color. I think I got a pink princess phone. I left with a bag and my phone and I guess my account set up.

Now it's wait on the phone forever, put on hold then asked 10 times if they can do more or take a survey at the end and all you want to do is get off the phone because you were on hold so long.

One phone company seemed OK to me.
 

I forgot about those. I came from a little town. I remember when they did away with that. Our telephone number went from 7321 to 4-7321. How in the hell were you supposed to remember all those numbers. My mom had the same # for over 60 years.
 
Aunt Bea said:
We had one when I was a kid, it kept my grandmother pretty busy LOL!!!

The old phone used to ring every once in a while during an electrical storm, we were not allowed to use it until the storm ended.
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Same here when I was a kid. We had one other family on our party line but my uncle had to share with 5 or 6.
 
Aunt Bea said:
We had one when I was a kid, it kept my grandmother pretty busy LOL!!!

The old phone used to ring every once in a while during an electrical storm, we were not allowed to use it until the storm ended.
Click to expand...

Same here -- I guess my mom was afraid electricity would come through the phone and electrocute you. I can remember her hollering "Don't touch that phone!"
 
fuzzybuddy said:
I saw an article about Lily Tomlin. She used to do "Ernestine", the phone operator, on Laugh In. She would threaten everybody, because "we are the phone company". Her skit was funny, but MaBell wasn't. If your plug got pulled, you had to crawl back, it was the only phone company in town. I know I might have missed a payment or two, and who didn't forget to sign the check every once in a while.View attachment 35214
Click to expand...

In the olden days (Ha!) I ran a switch board just like that one, but bigger, in one of my first jobs. Not as easy as it looks to keep all the lines going to the right persons.
 
We never had a party line. My mother would never have allowed that. I guess they paid extra for the private line.

I think my brother had a party line when he first moved out. Once I was talking to him and some elderly female voice butted in.
 

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