I'm so old I Remember when:

[Nomadicus]

I remember my grandmother picking up the phone to make a call several times before she would finally tell the motor mouth ladies on her party line that she needed to make a call.

 

[Rick589]

I remember my grandmother picking up the phone to make a call several times before she would finally tell the motor mouth ladies on her party line that she needed to make a call.

Never had a party line to deal with but I imagine it wasn’t pleasant. Someone listening to you or you listening to someone.

 

[Nomadicus]

I'm so old I remember the day I saw my grandfather start the process for preparing a couple of big black chickens for the dinner table. The norm back then was to tie their feet together over the clothesline and then make the cut on the jugular so they would bleed out. Once I saw blood and realized what he was doing I found a better place to play.

 

[Canadian Wind]

And I am so old I am a trained PBX manual telephone exchange operator. Apologies if I have shared that before.
"Hold Please"
"Connecting you now"

My mom did that. Always loved to visit her at work as a child.

 

[LaFleche]

And I am so old I am a trained PBX manual telephone exchange operator. Apologies if I have shared that before.
"Hold Please"
"Connecting you now"

 

[RoyalChick]

To avoid misrepresenting my age, PBX systems were in operation long after direct dial came in. Mainly in institutions that had many phones like hospitals, colleges etc.
I was employed by one of them. Calls coming in to me were direct dialed and then I had to plug them in to the correct extension.

 

[jxp]

This was popular when I was in middle school and high school. I don't know why, we all lived at the beach and had naturally sun-lightened hair anyway. The effects of marketing, I suppose.

View attachment 4047013

Closest thing to dying my hair I've ever done.

 

[jxp]

Yes! Ours were filled with chocolate or chewing gum.

We had the ones like in the picture. By the time my own children were old enough for such treats, the sticks were skinnier and shorter with 2 stuck together at a time as if the manufacturer was afraid I'd they tried separating the pathetic things they'd break into pieces. They were very powdery and had no flavoring.

As for gum , in my time that would've been cigars with each color having a different fruit flavor.

 

[jxp]

I remember the chocolate ones. It wasn’t very good chocolate as I recall.

I remember -with sobs and a shudder - when they came out with carob bean as a substitute for chocolate.

 

[Debbie292d]

I'm so old I was able to keep up with the neighborhood gossip at my grandmother's place by listening in on the partly line. At least until she caught me doing so.

Two other farmers were on ours. One was an old recluse bachelor we never saw.

I remember his ringing only one time when we kids were in the kitchen with Mom and Dad. We all stared at the phone. It stopped ringing, so he'd picked it up. Dad excitedly said, "Nobody touch that!" There were several groans as we walked away. I guess we were all thinking the same thing.