[Old Goat 67]

Alright, that's enough already.

I'm a retired telephone man too and I have one older than both of you....

But I put a TT pad in the writing desk, so I guess maybe I'm out....

Boy, did we ever get off topic here.

Charles

[YNOBIL]

Originally Posted by Old Goat 67

Alright, that's enough already.

I'm a retired telephone man too and I have one older than both of you....

But I put a TT pad in the writing desk, so I guess maybe I'm out....

Boy, did we ever get off topic here.

Charles

Sorry, I started this whole crazy topic. But now we know who the phone guys are.

[Old Blue 66]

Originally Posted by Old Goat 67

Alright, that's enough already.

I'm a retired telephone man too and I have one older than both of you....

But I put a TT pad in the writing desk, so I guess maybe I'm out....

Boy, did we ever get off topic here.

Charles

Maybe we should steer this thread towards Miley Cyrus and her incredible knack for searching out old world spider monkeys in the Burmese Jungle and why its important to her that its the ninth in the twelve-year cycle of animals which appear in the Chinese zodiac related to the Chinese calendar?

[Steve's birds]

Miley Cyrushouse was broken into 2nd tine in 2014, and her $100, 000 Maserati stolen. All the young people know that. They devour that sctick on their smart phones. They don't read boojs, newspapers, and don't pay for magazine subscriptions.

I work with 70 of them, and that is my observation from years of "break time" in the same room. This is why print is collapsing at a dizzying rate. Blame Kardashians for creating more excitement than .pontiac could, and our slogan was "driving excitement".

I'm very bummed, because si much if what made our little workd orbit got its financial awareness , abpnd pitential new sales through the printed word.

That is why I always paid forward, lest mass support falter, quality drop and we collectively get screwed.

If you were building a way cool car like our Canadian pontiacer from Quebec, in his Sunfire morphed into a 69 Judge that was over the top cool, and proved its appeal by being a guy magnet at Norwalk, now the incentive to build that huge 300 hr project is gone!

And we be screwed as a result.

[John V.]

Big article in my Sunday paper, headline, "Is Our Love Affair With Driving Over?".

Miles driven in the US is down and dropping, kids are delaying or not even getting a license.

I believe they said something like 70% of 17 yos have a license down from 87% at the peak.

They cited various reasons. One was essentially that younger people don't feel the need to jump in the car and go visit friends, they communicate by text and other social media instead.

Different world now.

If I may jump into the phone guy fray. Not one myself but my grandfather worked 40 yrs or so for NY Bell. Retired in '65.

I have no phones, but a couple years ago my uncle gave me a flashlight that was my grandfather's. Not sure what he might have used it for on the job, but it says "BELL SYSTEM" on the clip. I don't know how old it is, from what I can google, Bond Electric made this style flashlight from the '20s to maybe the '50s.

I'd have to ask my mom about what exactly he did, AFAIK he worked in the office, I think he started out on the switchboard back when an operator had to connect the call. I know he worked the Bell exhibit at the 1939 World's Fair, I think they may have set up a switchboard for that.

Phone service has come a long way from those days.

Leasing the phone in the '60s? That went on until the '80s! I was married before Illinois Bell first allowed customers to buy their phones. I remember it was a pretty steep price to buy the old phone we had been "renting" from them. I'm thinking we paid something like $60 for our "trimline" desk phone. A couple years later, you could buy the same thing new for $10.

What a racket that was, sell old equipment to dupes like me! I still shake my head about that.

Reminds me of another developing trend.

We still have a land line at the house. But all of my 4 kids use a mobile phone exclusively, no land line. None of them subscribe to cable or dish either.

I think most of my peers still keep a land line service, but I know some that don't. That is something I think is dying out, same as print media.