National Telephone Day |Pad Patter 4.25.17

[bestcee]

There's seriously a holiday for everything. This one came across my computer this morning, and I laughed. And then I thought about it.

What is the first telephone you remember having? We had a party line when we were in rural Ontario. That's the first one I remember. And we had a rotary phone. My dad used to always win radio contests using it. He said it was because of the time it took to manually dial in!

When I was a teen, we had a phone in the hallway with a separate line for the kids. We thought we were so cool! As a parent, I've realized it's because my parents got tired of the kids tying up the phone line!

When I got married, we ran apartments, and had to have a phone line. But after that job, we stopped, and haven't had a house phone since! Now, it's just cell phones. That used to get smaller and smaller, and now keep getting bigger and fancier!

So, what about you? Did you have a party line? Did you have one of the lines where you called and talked to the operator? Do you have a home phone now?

 

[Danyale]

Gosh, I remember the looooong cord on our "avocado" colored rotary phone and would wrap it around my fingers a gabillion times. I would sit in side our pantry with the door shut and gab for hours. When Call Waiting happened, oh my gootness, I was in heaven - no one could get through to our house, then. LOL! I am totally a cell phone only person now.

I adore old phones...and microphones. There is just something so cool about them.

For those wanting to get inspired to make a page from "days long ago", I marked down my Then She Said Collection to 50% off the next 24hrs. ♥ I would love for you to share a page in my GALLERY

 

[jk703]

My old house phone with my parents. Then in high school, I got my own phone line. Sounds so bizarre now, since I truly can't stand to talk on the phone. After that, I got a beeper, remember how everyone had to have those!?

I had a phone all throughout college and every property after that, though as cell phones get used more often, the actual home telephone gets neglected.

We do have one now, as my youngest does not have a cell phone, and it eases my mind and heart if something happens. We also have one since with it, it's a cheaper package to have phone, internet, and tv all under FIOS (thankfully discounted with DH working for Verizon!)


I have told hubby to keep an eye out for a pay phone... then we can clean it up, and hang it on the wall!

 

[berniek]

I had one like these in my room when I was younger.
I hardly ever used it. But it was super cool.
I've had a blue one in the same style at home too. And those were the only two landline phones I've ever owned. It's cellphones only for me.

My first cellphone was something similar to this. Also, in white see-through plastic. lol
I guess I had a thing for see-through.

 

[IntenseMagic]

I never had a party line, but my ex-husband's grandmother did even after we got married in the late 80's. I do remember the rotary phone and when we got our first push button phone! It was on the kitchen wall with the 30ft cord.
When my sister and I were teens we got our own phone line and I loved my princess phone like this one

Then I had the slimline phone for awhile. Ohhhh and when cordless phones came along, it was so cool!!! I got my first cell phone in 1990. It was a bag phone that had to stay in the car. My first hand held, out of the car cell phone in 2003 after the ex and I split, and got rid of the home phone completely in 2005. We do have a home phone now through the internet company, but only because it was cheaper to bundle internet and phone than to have internet alone. No one ever uses it and I don't even know the number lol.

 

[gonewiththewind]

I grew up with the rotary phone, and thought we were high class when we got a phone that hung on the wall and was push button. LOL We never had call waiting.

Here's a photo of a layout I did about the princess phone I had when I was a teenager! @IntenseMagic We're twins! LOL

 

[Danyale]

I had one like these in my room when I was younger.
I hardly ever used it. But it was super cool.
I've had a blue one in the same style at home too. And those were the only two landline phones I've ever owned. It's cellphones only for me.

My first cellphone was something similar to this. Also, in white see-through plastic. lol
I guess I had a thing for see-through.

Oh gee whiz!! I dont even remember them!?!?! But I found a clear one like that for my daughter at a flea market that I hope one day we can get it working!

 

[Jan]

I remember when I was little our phone in California had Elmwood 9 as the first part of the number. Can't remember the rest. Then later in my early teens and living in northern Utah it was Cherry 6 I think. And that one was a party line. If you needed the phone you had to interrupt whoever was talking and let them know you really needed to make a call. Some people could talk FOREVER!! After I got married we had a line that was 969-1991....on a rotary phone!!! Took forever to dial that number every time you had to call it. Now we have a landline for the purpose of emergency crews being able to find us easier. And a few years ago we finally gave in and got our first cell phones. We are no longer in the dinosaur age. Used to be that everyone in the state had the same area code. Now there are so many of them you can't keep up with them all.

 

[Serena]

I had one like these in my room when I was younger.
I hardly ever used it. But it was super cool.
I've had a blue one in the same style at home too. And those were the only two landline phones I've ever owned. It's cellphones only for me.

My first cellphone was something similar to this. Also, in white see-through plastic. lol
I guess I had a thing for see-through.

I had that phone!!!!!!! We had the rotary phones for awhile, then it went to the avocado green phone with the looooooong cord, then when I was 12, my step dad found that and I had loved it SO much that he got it for my birthday. I AM a see through type of gal, still am!!!!

@jk703 YES!!! I had pagers and knew how to install the cases, so my beeper was always more than one color!!! OMG, I thought that was the coolest thing. So did my work, they paged me a bunch. x.x lol!!!

Those princess phones are to die for!

I actually hate TALKING on the phone (started when I was 17, looong story) so I won't even talk to someone I WANT to, it's texts, emails, or a quick "hi, you're coming over? Awesome! *click*" and that's about it.

we haven't had a home line in forever, ever since it was no longer a requirement. Schools have phones and all the kids know our cell numbers so I'm okay with that, the teenager is on our plan since it was 20 dollars to add another line and that's it, and the iddy biddys have their iphones (hand me downs from our upgrades or old phones from their dad's work..) and they can text and facetime on wi-fi. That's about it.

 

[KarenW]

We had a party line when I was little, don't really remember it. We had an old bakelite rotary dial telephone, so heavy. My best friend in high school didn't get a landline phone until she was 17, so no long hours chatting to her.

In university we had one phone for around 50 students in the residency, whoever was nearby had to answer, then run around trying to find the person or take a message - you got to know everyone in your block pretty quickly that way.

Now we have a landline but only 2 or 3 people know that number so it rarely rings, I use my mobile for most things now.

 

[BevG]

Ah, in old pictures of my childhood home, there was a beige clunky wall-mounted rotary phone - a party line. My high school, we had our own line with a black wall-mounted phone --- but we had one of those 30 ft cords. You could go half-way down the basement stairs and shut the door to talk in private - important when there are 6 kids and 2 parents. If your sister got mad at you, or wanted to use the phone, they would hang up on you and run. Since you were half down the stairs, they usually got away with it.

We got our first cell in 2001; my husband and I shared one for many years. In 2008, we kept our home phone number, but had it transferred to a cell phone. So our home phone is actually a cheap cell that sits on my desk. We have Bluetooth handsets throughout the house that allow us to answer it. It gets all the telemarketing calls. Only friends have our personal cell numbers.

 

[michelepixels]

The phone I talked on the most when I was a kid looked like this one. It sat on the bedside table on my dad's side of the bed. (It's still there today, in fact, I think.) I would lie on my parents' bed chatting with friends for hours, twirling that cord.

We also had a wall phone in the kitchen/dining room like this. It's still on my parents' wall even today though they don't use it. They have a cordless phone now.

The first phone I had in my bedroom as a teenager was a strange one I can't find in Google images because I don't know what to call it. It was just one rectangular boxy piece, like a handset with buttons in it, with a cord that plugged into the phone jack. Just laying it down on the table would depress a button to hang it up. You can kind of see it in this clip from a photo of me using it around 1990.


Nowadays we still have a home phone, but we will probably get rid of it in a few years when my 10 year old is old enough for his own phone. Right now the only use it gets is from annoying telemarketers and when my son wants to call me when I'm out of the house.

 

[IntenseMagic]

I grew up with the rotary phone, and thought we were high class when we got a phone that hung on the wall and was push button. LOL We never had call waiting.

Here's a photo of a layout I did about the princess phone I had when I was a teenager! @IntenseMagic We're twins! LOL

Oooh I love it!! I'd love to have another one today. They are so pretty!! I'll bet my mom may still have mine in her attic somewhere haha. I need to go snooping!

 

[bestcee]

After that, I got a beeper, remember how everyone had to have those!?

I had a pager! DH and I still joke about the pager codes. Because of course, ours were numbers only so we invented codes to chat in our friend group.

I got my first cell phone in 1990. It was a bag phone that had to stay in the car

We had one of those in my our van growing up. It was like $5/minute so you didn't use it unless it was an emergency!

Just laying it down on the table would depress a button to hang it up.

I remember that one! I think my aunt had it?

 

[bestcee]

My coveted phone was the Mickey mouse one. I bought one at a yard sale before we got rid of our landline.

 

[bcgal00]

I loved our dial wall phone when a kid. We had a super long cord that I could stretch right across the room and into the next. I used to sit in our enclosed back porch with the cord stretched from the kitchen. I would talk for hours with my knees to my chest and my back up against the wall, not turning any lights on, enjoying my private time. My fave time to chat on the phone was right after dinner b/c then my mom would get tired of waiting for me and would end up doing dishes herself LOL (we had no dishwasher).

 

[Sokee]

Oh my goodness this is the exact phone we had in our kitchen!!! First phone I remember. We had a shared party line. Funny thing is if you were calling local you only need to use the last 4 digits of that line! Ours was in the kitchen and I remember everyone would walk into the pantry, shut the door to have privacy while we talked. LOL. We were a family of 7 children so you needed that pantry for privacy....... the only problem if someone wanted to use the phone they had the base on their side of the door and they would just hang you up!!!! grrrrrr can you imagine taking to your best friend and all of sudden someone hangs you up!!!!? Yes I had 5 brothers!

 

[Karen]

We had a wall phone just like that yellow one too... except our was pea green. and with a LONG cord. when my sister and I were teens my dad finally let us have a phone upstairs, but not on a different line. It was horrible though because ALL of our friend that we went to school with had a different prefix to their phone numbers, so it was long distance to call everyone. Even people one mile away were long distance. So dumb! Can you imagine even having long distance calls anymore? Now with cell phones almost every call is free and almost everyone has unlimited minutes! What a difference!

We do have a home phone still, but it's through a cheap VOIP and we had our old home number converted to a cell number and then to a google voice number so even if we move we'll have our original number.

I don't even think my boys know have to call on the phone though, they always just facetime me. Lol.

 

[LeeAndra]

I have no idea what a party line is so we must not have had one of those.

I remember tying up the phone so much with dial-up when we got a computer in 1994 that my dad made a rule that I could only be online from the half hour to the hour... so I stayed up SUPER late at night and stayed online for hours after everyone was in bed.

I've never been a big phone talker but I was super irritated when my little sister got a cordless phone in her room when she was in high school but our parents hadn't allowed me to get one at the same age.

I have very fond memories of sitting on the floor in my dorm room freshman year talking to my 'boyfriend' on a landline & we had to save up our money to buy phone cards with minutes to use since he lived several states away.

I got my first cell phone when I graduated from college in 2002 and was on a family plan with my ex, his mom, and his brother for a couple of years until we got our own plan.

I don't talk on the phone unless forced to & I don't text much, either, so I really just talk via message boards like this and Facebook messages.

 

[bellbird]

"avocado" colored rotary phone

ours was the same - i guess when the kitchen is that 70's green and mustardy yellow and fake wood, it is natural to get a green phone!