Yup, been there. With the panel board switching system you had call
forwarding, three way or conference calling, voice messaging, certain
secretarial services, and very efficient emergency communications services.
We were out of town for a few days once, and on return home there was
a half hour pause before the phone rang and the operator had the
messages we missed while we were gone. Everyone knew when we got
home, but the operator would wait half an hour to let us get settled
in before calling.
Many times you didn't even have to call the operator to set up call
forwarding. If you went to your neighbors house your calls would
automatically be routed there, because everyone knew where you went
without calling the oprerator. When the school bus was running late
in a winter storm there was constant update down the line so you
always knew where the bus was, and the kids didn't have to wait too
long outside in the snow.
We once had a fire in the old farm house. I picked up the phone,
gave my name, said we had a fire, and hung up; The fire siren in
town went off before I got the phone back on the hook, the fire truck
was there, 5 miles out of town in 7 minutes, and a dozen firemen and
neighbors were there before the truck arived. All this with an
unattended fire house and well dispersed all volunteer fire
department (and one 10 second phone call).
When I was young, my mother had a heart attack a few minutes after us
kids got on the school bus in the morning. Dad picked up the phone,
said we need the family doctor right now, and hung up. Operator
called the right doctor in the county seat three towns away and
doctor immediately hopped in his car and started driving at breakneck
speed. Operator called the preacher at our church. His wife had
their car, so he walked a block to the highway to wave down the
doctor as he was passing through town and hitched a ride. Not bad
for primitive phone service.
My dad cried when they installed the dial system in 1968, and all of
the special services disappeared. Yes, dialing four digits would
call anyone in town. One prefix digit plus four digits would call
anyone in the surrouding towns. I don't think we had area codes in
those days, so we still had to dial "0" for anything more than about
25 miles away. I don't remember ever dialing seven digits untill I
moved into the big city where there were multiple switching
exchanges. I think it was decades later before they got call
forwarding back again. I still keep the old battery powered crank
phone as a momento.
At 08:35 AM 1/16/2012 +0000, Paul Hunt wrote:
>I remember being able to pick up the phone and just ask for who I
>wanted, and if they had gone to a friends house the call was put
>through to there instead :o)
>
>----- Original Message -----
>>>I don't miss the party lines, but within our exchange you could
>>>ring another number by just dialing the last four digits.
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