Throwback Thursday

When I was young, we didn't have cellphones. We couldn't get in touch with people every single second of every day. If you were out and about and needed to tell someone you were running late, or had an emergency you called from a phone booth.

The phone was a pay phone. You dropped a dime in and dialed your number. Back then telephone numbers were a combination of a 3 alpha-numeric exchange and a 4 digit number. My parents' telephone number was Olympic3-5346. (OL3-5346) My auntie lived near Logan Airport in East Boston. Her telephone number was Logan9-1918. (LO9-1918)

No push buttons. A dime would get you a 3 minute local call. If you were calling outside the local area, the operator would break into your call before it connected to tell you how much change you needed to drop in to complete the call.

Sometimes, you got change back if you only had a quarter for a dime call. Some people in a rush would forget to collect the change. You always checked the change bin in a pay phone to see if there was spare change.