Phone Booths and Pay Phones

   Yogi Berra advised that we can observe a lot by just looking.
Today in a nearby town, I approached an intersection where I have often travelled without heretofore having seen the above sign.  For safety reasons I did not exit my automobile to take a close up, so I will "read" for you what is on the sign: 
      "25c per minute . . .
        LONG DISTANCE
        ANYWHERE
        ANYTIME "

      I suppose that earlier there had been a telephone booth nearby.  Once located throughout the landscape, 'phone booths and 'pay phones' have largely disappeared. (Where does Clark Kent go to don his Supertogs?)  In 1954, one of those sanctuaries was located inside a drug store across the street from where I had an after school job.  At church camp that Summer, I had been smitten (as the old folks said) by a girl who lived 30 miles away.  Having no 'wheels' of my own to go visiting, I spent considerable time in that booth.  Today, we would have Skype or FaceTime available. . . which is one reason for the demise of the phone booth . . . but I get ahead of the story.

    And 25 cents per minute was considered typical.  A call from my hometown (where the sign was seen) to the town where I now live (15 miles distance) cost a flat fee of 25 cents for the first minute and additional fees thereafter. In the 1950's that was a chunk of change (literally) for a high school student.  So, a 'LONG DISTANCE CALL' was a big deal.  So was receiving such a call.

    By the time my younger brother arrived at UNC Chapel Hill in the mid-to-late 1960's, dorms had pay phones on each hall.  Not so in my undergraduate days ten years earlier elsewhere.  There were ten two-story dorm sections and an extended third floor, altogether housing perhaps 250 guys, with ONE telephone in the entire building.  Furthermore, the phone was located in Center Section lounge, which was seldom occupied. If someone happened to hear the ring and answered, then the intercom would resound with "So and so, you have a call in Center Section".  If you were away from the dorm at that time , well . . . .

    In the adult world, long distance calls were often considered a harbinger of ill news, almost making the world stop. Expense and inconvenience were factors.  A friend told of calling collect to his North Carolina home from Fort Benning, Georgia, only to have his Grand-mother refuse to accept the call because of the perceived expense.  Likely, he had called from a phone booth similar to the one just outside the barracks at Fort Jackson, South Carolina, where I did Basic Training in the Summer of 1962.  Getting access to that 'phone required great patience as there was often a waiting line.

   And, direct dial ?  No such convenience.  "Number, please" was the response when we dialed "O" for Operator.  Even on operator assisted calls, there were often extended waits as the call had to be patched through several exchanges.  Finally, when the other person answered the call, the operator would direct, "Please insert 25 cents" [or more, depending on the distance called].   And, just as the conversation would get started, "Please insert another ____ cents."  How did she know that 'time was up'?  Was she eavesdropping?  Other than perhaps a nosy operator, at least there was the absence of party lines, 2-4 other families sharing the same line and one knew that there was no such thing as a 'confidential conversation'.

   For the traveller away from home, pay phones were how we connected.  Theoretically, each phone booth also had a local directory.  In reality, it was a good idea to have recorded the number(s) one wished to call because often vandals had shredded the 'phone book', as it was called.

     While all this occurred in the not-so-distant-past, it seems like 'ancient history' or bad fiction to a generation seemingly born with one of these in hand:

        No need here for elaboration on the multiple ways cellular phones (aka Smart phones) have changed our lives.  However, I still have difficulty comprehending how friends and family can be (almost literally) half a world away and we not only speak in 'real time' but see each other simultaneously .  Good grief, if Face Time had been around in the '50's, I would have had to use an extra  dab of Brylcreem to impress her.

     Satchel