A rotary dial phone

[cassiesmom]

Until about 6 months ago, there was an avocado green rotary dial telephone in the spare bedroom at my mom and dad's house. It even had the "word" phone sticker on it - remember those? In my case, growing up it was "GU-4" for Gunderson, but I don't know how they came up with the words. When my youngest niece was able to dial a push button phone, they were visiting grandma and granddad. My niece needed to phone her best friend. She went into the spare bedroom, took one look at the phone and said "How do you use this thing?" (Grandma and granddad have a cordless phone in the kitchen by the way) Back in the day the telephone came from the telephone company - you didn't go purchase one. I also remember when Illinois Bell used to charge more for service if you had a touch tone phone. The green phone has been replaced with a little push button phone, one that's not cordless. But we still laugh over "How do you use this thing?!" even though my niece gets so embarrassed when we tell the story!

[Husky_mom]

they sure were made to flip you out of your mind..... LOL.......

now that we have to dial up to 13 numbers (for cellphone) it would be the cause of serious stress having misdialed the last number......LMAO

I did enjoyed them at the time you only dialed like 5 numbers......oh those times.... adn I loved when the parents removed the dialing disk to "prevent" us from dialing.......ROFLMAO... little did they know we still could dial!!... just by clicking the thingies were you hang up for the numbers you wanted to dial

example: number 12345

one click pause two clicks pause three clicks pause...and so on AND you get the actual number you "dialed"....

[Rachel]

I actually have nightmares about trying to dial on a dial phone (in an emergency), making a mistake, and having to start all over again. I takes forever to dial a number and that was when I only had 7 numbers to dial.

When I was growing up our phone number had only 4 numbers and I still remember it, although I can't remember any of the numbers I had subsequently. I probably had a dial phone longer than most people because of that *extra charge* they used to have for touch tone.

[Freckles]

I have a 1982 version rotary in my bedroom. Don't dial out too often, but receive many calls.

[chocolatepuppy]

I remember them.

[Medusa]

My sister Shirley still has one. She doesn't have long distance calling either and I asked her why not and she said "Who would I call?" I said "Me!" She said "Why? You always call me." Of course, no cell phone or computer either. I told her that when I visit her I jokingly tell my friends that I'm going into the time warp, so if they never hear of me again, they'll know why. I'll bet somewhere in her place there's a wringer washing machine, too. Must be a Pittsburgh thing, David. She also has the furniture that she got when she married in 1953 and it looks as new as it did the day she bought it.

[Catlady711]

We had a rotary for many years growing up, a big white one with a 25' coiled cord and a 50' jack cord, it's long since faded to an antique white. I think mom got it back in the late 60's - early 70's.

Later we kept it around in case the power went out (cordless phones don't work without power). My mom eventually gave it to me (went for a cell phone), and I just kept it to test the phone jack line if we had phone problems.

When we got rid of the home phone service here we no longer had a use for it. Some friends were having a school play where they needed a stage prop of an old fashioned rotary phone, so we donated our fully functioning phone to the school as a stage prop.

[Karen]

My sister Shirley still has one. She doesn't have long distance calling either and I asked her why not and she said "Who would I call?" I said "Me!" She said "Why? You always call me." Of course, no cell phone or computer either. I told her that when I visit her I jokingly tell my friends that I'm going into the time warp, so if they never hear of me again, they'll know why. I'll bet somewhere in her place there's a wringer washing machine, too. Must be a Pittsburgh thing, David.

Um, careful there. I've never even been to Pittsburgh, and there's a wringer and a washboard in my basement!

[davidpizzica]

My sister Shirley still has one. She doesn't have long distance calling either and I asked her why not and she said "Who would I call?" I said "Me!" She said "Why? You always call me." Of course, no cell phone or computer either. I told her that when I visit her I jokingly tell my friends that I'm going into the time warp, so if they never hear of me again, they'll know why. I'll bet somewhere in her place there's a wringer washing machine, too. Must be a Pittsburgh thing, David. She also has the furniture that she got when she married in 1953 and it looks as new as it did the day she bought it.

It could be a Pittsburgh or a Penn Hills thing, Mary! I have the rotary phone, and I still have an 8-track player and tapes and those big round things called LPs. People here don't throw ANYTHING away. I do have one concession to the 21st century, an MP3 player! BTW, Mary what part of Pittsburgh did you live?