Geezer Test

[xoxoxoBruce]

You just missed her here

[footfootfoot]

OK bruce, post#36, did you pen that and how did I get a version of it ascribed to mickey rooney, of all people, in my email from my dad last month?

I had a party line whern I lived in VT in the late 70's early 80's. We also only had to dial the last 4 digits of the phone # if we were calling within the same prefix.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Originally Posted by footfootfoot

OK bruce, post#36, did you pen that and how did I get a version of it ascribed to mickey rooney, of all people, in my email from my dad last month?

I had a party line whern I lived in VT in the late 70's early 80's. We also only had to dial the last 4 digits of the phone # if we were calling within the same prefix.

Email, not ascribed to anyone. I'm too old to be writing about the 80s.
Yes, dial 4 digits in your own exchange, which in my case was the whole town. They didn't get a touch tone system until the late 90s. Although you could use a faux touch tone phone, data transmission was kaput.

[capnhowdy]

I love that movie. Own it too.

[capnhowdy]

I don't recall the emergency drills other than fire drills. I spent a lot of my tad days in Catholic scool, so maybe that explains it . I reckon we just thought Mother Mary would handle it.... Not to mention St. Chris. But he got fired, didn't he? hmmmm...

[Undertoad]

One of the most fascinating things I've ever seen was in 1989 - an old telephone switch still in operation. At the time I worked in telecommunications and was working with various baby bells to upgrade their equipment. Every phone number came into the old switch building and terminated at a set of relays. The room was full of these relay sets. The old dial phones would activate these relays and a mechanical connection would be made. The room was loud with clicking relays.

These massive switch rooms previously replaced massive rooms of operators, who would help you make your call by actually plugging wires into jacks. The switches were a huge advance back in the day: "direct dial". People actually had to be educated in direct dialling and how NOT to use the operator.

Now, these switch rooms are replaced by silent computers which can make these connections at the speed of light. An entire room of switches replaced by, roughly, a desktop system.

All those hundreds of thousands of operators jobs are lost, but we are better off without them because it doesn't cost $20 to call Omaha for 5 minutes.

[Griff]

Think of the energy savings as well. I wonder what we do now that'll be seen as so obviously inefficient. Of course those relays were EMP resistant...

[glatt]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

One of the most fascinating things I've ever seen was in 1989 - an old telephone switch still in operation. At the time I worked in telecommunications and was working with various baby bells to upgrade their equipment. Every phone number came into the old switch building and terminated at a set of relays. The room was full of these relay sets. The old dial phones would activate these relays and a mechanical connection would be made. The room was loud with clicking relays.

That's so cool! Somehow my dad finagled a tour of the local teleco for my siblings and me back in the early '80s. We went into a switching room just like the one you describe. I was amazed that there was one switching machine that corresponded to each telephone line in my home town. The guy led us over to the mechanical switching machine for our phone number, but of course it was idle since we weren't at home placing a call.

I went on so many tours of places like that when I was a kid. A sardine packing factory in Maine was a real treat to see. They have little old ladies that pack those fish into the cans like that. Raw. Then they bake the can, and apply the lable.

Companies used to give tours back then. Now privacy issues and liability concerns mean that you can't get tours of anything. The few places that offer tours are really just trips to the gift shop.

[Trilby]

I was born in '64. we did a LOT of tornado drills in the 70's.

[footfootfoot]

despite my near complete lack of musical aptitude (although I can remember lyrics to songs after only hearing them once or twice, I only need to learn to carry a tune) I always wanted to start a group that only played fifties and sixties cover tunes and call it "Duck and Cover."

I just thought it was too obscure for most people. That and my afforementioned total lack of talent.

[footfootfoot]

Tonchi:

I have heard, and this may be one of those viscous rumors/urban legends that all those fallout shelters etc. we had in the US during the cold war (such as gymnasiums and school basements) weren't intended to help anyone survive the blast or firestorm, but rather created a tidy way of dealing with the inevitable, unmanagable population of rotting corpses. "Be calm and follow the signs pointing to your nearest mass grave."

That way when the folks in the really deep holes came out to salvage what they could, they wouldn't face the overwhelming pile of decay, it would be neatly below ground already.

It could have been just the P.O.V. of my hippy science teacher.

[Tonchi]

Originally Posted by footfootfoot

Tonchi:

I have heard, and this may be one of those viscous rumors/urban legends that all those fallout shelters etc. we had in the US during the cold war (such as gymnasiums and school basements) weren't intended to help anyone survive the blast or firestorm, but rather created a tidy way of dealing with the inevitable, unmanagable population of rotting corpses. "Be calm and follow the signs pointing to your nearest mass grave."

That way when the folks in the really deep holes came out to salvage what they could, they wouldn't face the overwhelming pile of decay, it would be neatly below ground already.

It could have been just the P.O.V. of my hippy science teacher.

I hadn't heard that before, it sounds like some marvelous attempt at gallows humor. Actually, although I remember seeing the "home size" shelters advertised on tv and in newspapers, nobody I ever met had one. I've seen films of the backhoes digging the holes for the drop-in module types, and remember thinking it looked more like a porta-potty than something that could protect a family of 4. In those days we were all very naive as to the lingering effects of a blast, and that is why John Wayne and a lot of Nevada residents are no longer with us, not to mention anybody who had been on a ship at Bikini Atol. The silly little ventilation chimneys these shelters had look very unscientific to us now, but in those days everybody acted like only the largest cities would ever be attacked anyway. But before the Cold War ended and all the missles were counted, there was a bomb somewhere pointed at every city of note, coast to coast.

The main uban legend they have spread in my area is that the Central Valley of California will purposely be spared the radiation because the Russians had specific plans for us. Neutron bombs and bioagents would be used instead to eradicate the population without disturbing the facilities and farmland. Since this area produces much of the food in our country, they intended it for their own use. Possible truth? Who knows. Hope I don't have to find out.

[xoxoxoBruce]

I've a gut feeling that all these "secret plans" attribute the US and Soviet leaders with much more control and much more intelligence than is warranted. I think the reality was, when we don't know what to do next, push "the button" and see what happens.

[Clodfobble]

Speaking of Duck and Cover, we watched "The Iron Giant" tonight and it had a really amusing little scene involving duck and cover drills...

[Urbane Guerrilla]

Those viscous rumors really stick around, don't they, Foot?