Please caption this image
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London, ON, June 2008 [Click to enlarge]
In our headlong rush into the future, we often leave formerly advanced technologies behind, forgotten by our collective need to have the latest and greatest of anything. As the pace of change accelerates, successive generations of children never have the opportunity to wonder where all this wizardry came from, and what life must have been like beforehand.
This old phone sat quietly in a forgotten corner of our children's old school. The building has now been sold and this past week they started classes in their brand new facility. It has air conditioning, a real computer network and a host of other technologies the 80-plus-year-old building never could have dreamed of.
Indeed, our Internet-savvy, tech-fearless eight-year-old son smiles when we tell him about life before touch tone phones, voicemail and e-mail, when Google didn't exist (by the way, happy 10th birthday today, Google) and personal computers hadn't yet been invented. Now, even this relic no longer lurks in the dim corner of his classroom to remind him of a forgotten time.
Your turn: Please give this photo a worthy caption. Or two. Or ten. Enter as often as you like. Just click the Comment link below and have fun. Click here for the rules, such as they are.
About last week's picture of a man walking his cat: It seems I wasn't the only one who found this scene beyond weird. I'm so glad you had so much fun with it. Here's a quick look at this week's Honorable Menschens:
- Stacy: "Cat on a hot, tin....dock?"
- Lissa: "Who says I can't be a model? I've got my own catwalk!"
- Terri: "Of Mice and Men."
- Mama C: "Cat: Man's best friend."
- Sister AE: Superstitious Steve figured a white cat crossing his path would be good luck.
- Breadbox: Schrodinger discovered that somehow fluffy had escaped the box.
- Me: "Stay, Staay...Good Man...now COME!"
- Omykiss: Paws for thought ....
- Anne: You forgot your pole.
Posts
22 comments:
"1973 calling"
"If the lights go out...call me!"
Switching to dial up?
(to your youngest child who is looking bewildered)..."The one on the left is a phone. Those other things are called light switches."
Wide Receiver
Wayback Machine
Spin Zone
Re: Dial
Conversation Piece
To use, lift handset, use finger or pencil to dial number, place top portion next to your ear and lower portion near your mouth, then hold cord in hand and twist it around your finger absentmindedly while talking.
iPhone .002 feature list: Makes calls, receives them. That's it. Maximum range, approximately 8 feet, maybe 9 if you're lucky.
Why our parents have much stronger index fingers than we do.
Tethercall
Hear here.
for whom the bell tolls
Thanks for the menschen! Before I read your description of where this came from, I was thinking:
old school
I remember using these, especially how you had to wait for the dial to return to its "start" position before you could dial another number. Some numbers were quicker to dial than others. Ones with lots of zeros and nines seemed to take forever!
Hello Carmi!
"Wattson, come here I need you."
"Call waiting."
"Avon calling."
"Call display."
spwriter: Parents may have strong index fingers, but kids today have strong thumbs from text messaging.
Terri
Gracias Carmi! I was so excited and surprised to win. Thanks for your kind words about my blog. :)
The lights are on and no one's home.
"No, I don't want to hear about how good your life was before 'The Clapper'."
"You know, one day we'll look back on this and laugh."
"Call history."
"Don't laugh. Someday it'll happen to you too."
Hi Carmi!
Thanks so much for the Honorable Menschen! I feel so honored.
So nothing really clever comes to me for this photo.
Maybe..
"On hold...for about 30 years..."
Aren't you glad you use "dial." Don't you wish everyone did?
Terri, this is so true. I have a whole collection of photos of my boys where they've got the posture of the new generation - heads down, attention captured by the tiny electronic device in their hands, thumbs doing the "talking." The hunched-over look seems like a step backward on the evolutionary scale.
Lo-fidelity all stars.
Hello Carmi,
Thanks for the mention!
One more Caption from me:
"Rotary Club"
Terri
Carmi,
"After hours of studying phone-etics, Cletus still managed to fail English."
("That's unpossible!")
"Ringey" the phone pined away for John Lannigan ever since 'Dialing for Dollars' was cancelled.
P.S. Superhost (Supe to his friends)has sadly passed away.
Bradley
Interesting photo once again, Carmi...
Sometimes I get soundtrack ideas and not really a caption:
The phone rings... each ring resonates through a long empty, blue hallway whose floors are lined with flat tiles...
and no one answers.
Thanks for the menschen, Carmi!
Wow, though, I have no caption (the ones submitted all rock beyond what I could come up with). But I can HEAR the sounds of this phone as my finger dialed (especially those 0's!) and feel the plastic as I did...
I can even hear the clicking sounds these phones made as we dialed the numbers.
Being one with perfect pitch, the advent of the push-button "dial" was fun for me - I could listen to someone punching in numbers and figure out whose number it was. Still can - only most of the time, it's a totally useless skill. It used to make my mother double-take when I'd say, "oh, calling Daddy at work?" (we had a volume control on the handset for my siblings with the hearing losses so the tones were VERY audible to me)
Those WERE the days!!
Thank you for evoking the memories...as usual.
thanks for the mench.
"Brrrrrring...Yip yip yip yip yip yip Brrrrring...."
I'll take a little help from Jimmy Buffet here, Carmi...."If the phone doesn't ring, it's me" ;DDDD
I am loving the current theme on your blog..........i am still to catch up on all the images i missed.....shall pay a visit again ....soon ..till then, take care :)
The Warden could see no need to get a newer phone.
The 'sign-up now and get a free phone' offer fell short of their expectations
do-do-dee...
"634-5789...is no longer in service"
A phone JUST like this is used in the old house my mother in law grew up in and is now a summer home in NS. when I first started visiting the house over 20 years ago, there was a 3 family party line attached to it. Everyone had their own "ring."
Rotary Resusitation
Ringing in the Past.
Dialing into Time
Basic Black
Call Waiting
in light of 9/11 this week AND attending a funeral on 9/11 for a sheriff's deputy... i can't help but have this thought in my mind..
GONE BUT NOT FORGOTTEN
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