A Call from the Past
Stop and think for a minute - when is the last time - if ever - you used a payphone in a booth to make a call?
We saw this in Northern California, and rundown as it is, it has a working pay phone in it. I could not remember the last time I saw a phone booth - and one from GTE, at that.
This well-used dilapidated phone booth still has a payphone in it and is in the parking lot of the U.S. Post Office in Klamath, California.
And then I thought about “the old days” - dialing “Zero” for Operator - yes, “dialing” the longest click on the phone. That’s what we did before touch tone phones and 9-1-1. And then I thought about dialing 4-1-1 for Information. And I remembered dialing UL3-1212 for time and temperature in Southern California growing up.
Photo by Robert Alexander - Getty Images
And then, out of curiosity, I called 411 on my cellphone to see if it still worked - and it does, although it is fully automated as the computerized voice asks you to give the city and business or residence you’re looking for, and then connects you.
Then, out of curiosity, I called “Zero” to see if I might get a live person. No. A recording says dial 911 for emergency, dial 411 for information, dial something else for person-to-person - anyway, I gave up trying to talk to a real person.
Then I thought about GTE - the General Telephone and Electronics Corporation. It officially started in 1935 with roots going further back. And surprise, surprise, in 2000 GTE was acquired by Bell Atlantic and the name was changed to - drum roll, please - Verizon.
And although I’m not old enough to have used one of these, I remembered this from a trip through Maine in 2017…
The world’s largest telephone, Bryant Pond, Maine.
This memorial is in the park next to the Post Office on Highway 26 in Bryant Pond, Maine, and is a tribute to Barbara and Elden Hathaway who for 32 years operated the hand-crank phone system for Bryant Pond out of their home, with 8 operators (yes, real people). They sold the phone company to Oxford Telephone & Telegraph in 1981. In 1983 the company pulled the plug on the very last hand-crank phone system in the U.S. and changed to the direct-dial touch-tone lines for all customers. It probably needed to happen, but just like the rotary phone and the phone booth, one day the only thing that will exist from this era of history is a roadside memorial to days gone by.
