Broom Hilda by Russell Myers for June 03, 2020

I bought my mom one long time ago. Took it back home after she passed.

Old enough to remember when mom had to go upstairs to the landlady’s to use hers in an emergency.

At least nobody walked onto railroad tracks while walking while having one of those stuck in their face.

And that is why they called it the Bell Telephone Company.

When I was a kid our privacy line was the kitchen phones cord was long enough to take down the hall.

Now I’m wondering if Broomie still pays AT&T a fee to even have that kind of phone?

I have one of those. Not an original but a 1970’s reproduction. It works great.

One long and two short was the ring for our house.

6 phones for 1 line. Then we got semi private, which was only 2 phones for one line. That was in the early 70s.

Love those phones….Number please….party lines….

The remarkable thing to me is that even the oldest telephone still works when connected to today’s telephone network. (Business office digital systems excluded.)

Phones used to look good. Even the old ones were handsome. Current models look like water bugs.

And you don’t have to worry about misplacing it because it’s attached to the wall with a cord.

It is an upgrade, you don’t have wind this one.

I remember a story from a book (name and aiuthor forgotten):

Imagine a salesman coming into your office with the “latest thing”. “Imagine,” he says, “a device you can put on your desk and if anyone wants to talk to you it makes a loud annoying noise. So loud and annoying that you have to talk to the person no matter what you are in the middle of doing!” The author asks the question, Would you really buy such a thing?

These days people feel compelled to answer their cell phones no matter how rude it is to the people they are conversing with. Might as well have the loud, annoying noise.

I just hope that you can call people on it.

More than likely it is impervious to a nuclear blast :-)

Broomie’s retro-phone! I’m with it….

I remember using one of those as a kid. But you had to lift the headphone very carefully to see if anyone else was on the line. Heard a LOT of good gossip!!