[#19]

[Snowshoe Hare]

"One ringy dingy, two ringy-dingy....A gracious good morning to you...Have I reached the party to whom I am speaking?" -Ernestine the Operator (Lily Tomlin)

[Riverside Laker]

My current neighborhood is ALpine. Matter of fact if ya call my answering machine you'll get "Leave a message on ALpine 2-xxxx". Living on Baker and with Rainier two streets away I feel like a phony peak bagger. Unfortunately, ALpine is the standard for 25, so it ain't nothin' special. Some day I wanna have a candlestick phone, brass. Still don't have any of them new-fangled cordless phones or cell phones.

[Moleman]

DIamond 4-2349 in Eugene, Oregon. A black, rotary dial phone, of course. My work number is in the ALpine exchange in Everett. Up until maybe 10 or 15 years ago, you could dial other ALpine numbers by just dialing the last 5 digits, the ones after the "25", if you were calling from another ALpine line. I suppose next someone will start in on Postal Zones, the predecessors to zip codes in bigger cities. Someone from Seattle probably remembers if their mailing address ended with "Seattle 8, Washington", or whatever.

[Larry]

Sung to the tune of: ...1-800-588-2300, Empire today... But seriously...in my earliest childhood in Montesano, I just picked up the phone to make sure that no one else in the neighborhood was yakking on the multi-party line, and asked the operator (always, always, always a woman) to get my grandparent's phone, which was simply 2447. Operator: "Number please". Me: "2447 please".

[Malachai Constant]

The big city (Bremerton) was ESsex, that was hot.

[Quark]

[greg]

Redmond was TUcker. Before that we were in Kirkland, another VAndyke. Way back when the numbers were shorter too, as in the Jimmy Stewart movie "Call Northside 777." (1948)

[kleet]

Speaking of phone exchanges.

[Chief Paulina]

ORchard 21884. Roseburg, OR. Perhaps the only thing I remember from that far back.

[Snowshoe Hare]

[outdoorgal]

I'm with you JimK. I grew up in Des Moines. Our number was TAylor 4-5484. Our neighbor's number was TRinity 8-6522.

[Quark]

[WTCrocker]

WEbster5-#### in Veneta, Oregon. Like Kleet I blocked the last digits as my mom is still using that number. We had a party line and our ring was two short rings. We only used the last 4 digits if calling within our exchange and had to go thru the operator for long distance. It was the standard black rotary with the high cradle and a straight (not coiled) cord. And the instrument was property of Ma Bell. NOBODY had extensions in different rooms. There were no tele-marketers.

[polecatjoe]

Granite Falls was OWen-1 (691) My Grandma's was MUtual; she lived in Seattle. I like the old names- they made it seem a bit more human.