My fellow Baby Boomers, let’s boggle the minds of these ‘Lennials and Gen-Xers with an AnswerMug Challenge:

Our old phones didn't remember numbers...our brains did.
You had to pay for long distance calls.
What was an area code?
You could call an operator and get a phone number. I believe the number was '0'.

It was really cool to have a 'teen line' so that you didn't share a phone with your parents.

The telephone was generally placed in a central area so it was easy to get to.  Later it became more common to put extension phones in the bedroom or kitchen.

It was pretty common to get a busy signal because answering machines were not used much and voice mail didn't exist. You could ask the operator to check if the line was working or have her (it was always a her) interrupt in an emergency.

You could pay extra for a phone that matched your decor or had a longer cord. (Prior to that all phones were black.)

There was a time when phone numbers had letter prefixes instead of all numbers.  You would state your number as TAylor 5-1234. You never needed an area code for a local number.

As a Gen Xer:

1. Yes the family had the same house phone number. But we had more than on phone. Which allowed for a parent to sneakily listen in on a call.

2. I did not know that the phones where like cable boxes and given by the phone company.
3. Did not know that.
4. Phone books.  I still recieve phone books every year.
5. I have used a rotary phone. 

How having to answer the phone with no idea of who is on the other line. 

Your communication was actually private and secure ---- anything otherwise was illegal.   That is the nature of land lines.  I have one and always will unless it becomes an impossibility.  My local company says they will continue to provide a land line via the fiber network they are building out.  The only difference will be the service will not work in a power outage since fiber cannot carry the voltage that copper can.  The company will offer a battery back up of some kind.  I would just get a solar solution for that small amount of electricity needed.  

How about party lines, did any of you have one of those?

When my mom and dad moved the family out into the country in 1956 (I was 8 years old) we had one rotary dial phone which was on a party-line. I believe there were two other numbers on this line. My oldest sister now lives in that house and she still has the same number that we had in 1956. Ah, the good old days when life was much simpler. I do have a cell phone now but I rarely turn it on. I do so only when the power goes out (land-line hooked into the internet modem) and when I drive from one place to another. :)

I'm GenX and I remember all of those. The house I lived in from age 8 up until the day I got married had a rotary phone. Right up until 2007 I had a landline - until a pair of teenagers ran up a four figure phone bill, calling their friends' mobiles from the home phone.

People who appeared to be talking to themselves or some invisible entity were considered to be having a psychotic breakdown or off their faces on drugs. We avoided them.

When you met someone new and gave them your phone number, you would also give them the times you were most likely to be at home and available.

If you didn't know someone's preferences, etiquette demanded you never ring in only work hours for business or early evening for social matters.
Unless it was a medical emergency - it was considered unbelievably offensive to ring a person at a time inconvenient to them.

When out and about in public, every village and shopping centre had a public payphone in a weatherproof box a bit smaller the Dr Who's Tardis, with glass windows and doors, usually near a post-office. It was one of the primary aids in emergencies of any sort but was also often used by people who didn't want to be overheard. Some households had a small telephone-room with a comfortable chair.

Petrol stations, chemists (drug stores), small owner-operated grocery stores and big department stores had payphones inside.

If you broke down on the side of the road, someone would either give you a lift to the next garage, or they'd deliver a message to send a mechanic back to help you. They'd also happily ring anyone you nominated and pass on your message.

In the '80', answer machines came in - tape recordings you could selectively keep. (In Australia,) it was illegal to record calls without the other person's knowledge - but people often did, especially if they suspected a scam or harassment - the evidence could still be used

If you needed to make a call from someone else's phone, one asked permission and left the right change to cover the cost of it.


This post was edited by inky at October 7, 2019 2:11 PM MDT

3 - I'm 46 and old enough to remember that. When I first read your question I doubted it . . . but then I recalled a song that was on the radio called "Pull the Wires From the Wall" by the Delgados, from the mid-90s I think. So that proves it.

4 - We still get a Phone Book (white pages) and Yellow Pages delivered every year but they are about 1/10 and 1/5 as thick as they used to be back in the 1980s. 

5 - Again, I remember rotary dial - I think they went out about 1990.