Reed's Remember Rotary Dial Phones

Remember rotary dial phones? You know what I'm talking about. Those things that used to hang only on the kitchen wall and were the size of Kleenex boxes. They came only in ivory or black, had a handset that hung in a wishbone cradle and the cord reached one foot shy of anything you needed.

Ah, yes, that familiar ring tone - metal on metal (and I don't mean AC/DC or Black Sabbath). Inside that plastic wonder was a metal clacker hitting a metal bell activated by a transformer the size of today's cell phones. To dial you would take your index finger (either right or left, it came ready to use for lefties or righties), place it in the hole corresponding to the first number to dial and rotating it clockwise until it hit the finger stop. You'd hear that ch-ch-ch as it traveled back. Whew, one number down and only six to go (if it was local).

Some of you reading this may remember when you had to pick up the handset, wait for 'Mabel' to come on line and then ask for BR-549 (whose famous number is that?). Your conversations most likely were not private since your mom and dad had a 'party line' (this was not a 'party' line 1 900 call for those reading under 30).

Recently while channel surfing with the remote I happened across MTV. The show featured a group of teenagers that were living in a house totally furnished with items from the 70's. Black and white TV w/rabbit ears, no microwave and wall-to-wall shag carpeting! AND, guess what, a rotary dial phone. They were pretty sure it was a phone, but didn't know how to use it.

So, next time you reach for your cell as you are driving, remember we all lived with a phone that only reached three feet and still managed to stay in touch with everyone that mattered. So until next time - 6 (ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch) 3 (ch-ch-ch) 4 (ch-ch-ch-ch) ...