14 thoughts on “You don’t see these much anymore.”
Ah, nostalgia…
I’m old enough to remember mail boxes and trucks used to be green.
Around me, we used to have olive green mailboxes that were otherwise unmarked. They were used exclusively by postal carriers as “storage points” to hold mail for part of the route, so they didn’t have to carry the full load the entire route. While they were physically identical as the regular blue boxes, the slot to insert mail was welded shut, and just had a key operated removable panel in the ass end.
I hadn’t even thought about those in probably 40+ years. And thinking about it now, I can’t remember the last time I’ve seen a regular blue mailbox located anywhere other than in front of a post office in probably the past 15 to 20 years. All the “remotely” located mail boxes one used to find at shopping centers, banks, etc. have long since been pulled.
And phone booths? You must be joking. Any payphones we still had here since around 1986-87 were on those open front pedestals, or mounted on the wall of a store or business that provided it. I occasionally see the telltale black Western Electric 174A wall mounting plate still attached somewhere, even where the phone itself has been gone for 20+ years. Haven’t seen a free standing pedestal intact anywhere for at least that long, too. Might be a handful in the hood (where I don’t generally go), but they are virtually non-existent, most having been torn out en masse by 2005ish.
I do dabble in restoring old phones. Did a pink princess rotary phone for a customer of mine, who wanted to give it to his daughter for her birthday a couple of years ago. Was apparently a big hit. I have a handful of Western electric and Automatic Electric desk and wall phones I’ve done up on display. They all work, too. Even have one of the rare type 1500 10 key touchtone desk phones (with no * or # on the keypad) that Bell did briefly, before adding the two “extra” buttons. Most of these were promptly converted into 12 key models once they were pulled from the field for refurbing.
The city I live in still has at least 8 of the mail boxes in scattered locations around town but it’s been a long time since I’ve seen a telephone booth.
I have one just like that
A good buddy got a job delivering cases of 12 ounce Coke in bottles, in heavy wood crates. He’d park the truck on a busy street, unload a stack of crates, then hand-truck them into the neighborhood store.
Whereas I took in-store returned cases of empty beer bottles, conveyor belted them down stairs, then stacked the empties by brew. Distributors would bring in fresh full cases, then dumb-waiter the empties back out.
So many parties from that honor system inventory!
I’m in eastern KY.
There are phone booths around here.
The area is a series of ‘hollers’ so you lose and regain a signal just driving down the road.
They’d have to have a gajillion towers, one on each ridge, to have complete service. I need to use wifi calling at my place.
Heck, radio stations come and go and come and go and… just driving around.
Yes, there are still geographic anomalies that make the retention of “old tech” necessary in some places. Increasingly though, nobody (in positions of power) gives shit if a bunch of people lose a critical service.
It’s like the limitations of digital TV, and how so many people who used to be able to get usable (even if grainy) reception of OTA TV broadcasts “on the fringes” when the signals were analog, are now SOL because the range of digital isn’t as great to begin with, and becomes unwatchable, chopped up garbage on the fringes. Oh, but just spend more of your money to get a giant antenna, or cable/satellite, just to be able to get the bare minimum one used to receive for free.
My holler in NW AL is too deep and I’m too far from the point of transmission for digital. Been here 34 years and Starlink currently connects us with the interwebz.
Makes me think Superman was an extrovert….
I have contemplated the one pedestal pay phone I know of, will check on it Friday
There’s still a blue mail box at the strip mall where I grocery shop. Haven’t seen a pay phone around these parts in I can’t remember when.
Are you referring to the Mom ‘n Pop corner store, phone booth, mailbox or the street w/o litter?
We still have one in front of our Post Office for off hours
Ah, nostalgia…
I’m old enough to remember mail boxes and trucks used to be green.
Around me, we used to have olive green mailboxes that were otherwise unmarked. They were used exclusively by postal carriers as “storage points” to hold mail for part of the route, so they didn’t have to carry the full load the entire route. While they were physically identical as the regular blue boxes, the slot to insert mail was welded shut, and just had a key operated removable panel in the ass end.
I hadn’t even thought about those in probably 40+ years. And thinking about it now, I can’t remember the last time I’ve seen a regular blue mailbox located anywhere other than in front of a post office in probably the past 15 to 20 years. All the “remotely” located mail boxes one used to find at shopping centers, banks, etc. have long since been pulled.
And phone booths? You must be joking. Any payphones we still had here since around 1986-87 were on those open front pedestals, or mounted on the wall of a store or business that provided it. I occasionally see the telltale black Western Electric 174A wall mounting plate still attached somewhere, even where the phone itself has been gone for 20+ years. Haven’t seen a free standing pedestal intact anywhere for at least that long, too. Might be a handful in the hood (where I don’t generally go), but they are virtually non-existent, most having been torn out en masse by 2005ish.
I do dabble in restoring old phones. Did a pink princess rotary phone for a customer of mine, who wanted to give it to his daughter for her birthday a couple of years ago. Was apparently a big hit. I have a handful of Western electric and Automatic Electric desk and wall phones I’ve done up on display. They all work, too. Even have one of the rare type 1500 10 key touchtone desk phones (with no * or # on the keypad) that Bell did briefly, before adding the two “extra” buttons. Most of these were promptly converted into 12 key models once they were pulled from the field for refurbing.
The city I live in still has at least 8 of the mail boxes in scattered locations around town but it’s been a long time since I’ve seen a telephone booth.
I have one just like that
A good buddy got a job delivering cases of 12 ounce Coke in bottles, in heavy wood crates. He’d park the truck on a busy street, unload a stack of crates, then hand-truck them into the neighborhood store.
Whereas I took in-store returned cases of empty beer bottles, conveyor belted them down stairs, then stacked the empties by brew. Distributors would bring in fresh full cases, then dumb-waiter the empties back out.
So many parties from that honor system inventory!
I’m in eastern KY.
There are phone booths around here.
The area is a series of ‘hollers’ so you lose and regain a signal just driving down the road.
They’d have to have a gajillion towers, one on each ridge, to have complete service. I need to use wifi calling at my place.
Heck, radio stations come and go and come and go and… just driving around.
Yes, there are still geographic anomalies that make the retention of “old tech” necessary in some places. Increasingly though, nobody (in positions of power) gives shit if a bunch of people lose a critical service.
It’s like the limitations of digital TV, and how so many people who used to be able to get usable (even if grainy) reception of OTA TV broadcasts “on the fringes” when the signals were analog, are now SOL because the range of digital isn’t as great to begin with, and becomes unwatchable, chopped up garbage on the fringes. Oh, but just spend more of your money to get a giant antenna, or cable/satellite, just to be able to get the bare minimum one used to receive for free.
My holler in NW AL is too deep and I’m too far from the point of transmission for digital. Been here 34 years and Starlink currently connects us with the interwebz.
Makes me think Superman was an extrovert….
I have contemplated the one pedestal pay phone I know of, will check on it Friday
There’s still a blue mail box at the strip mall where I grocery shop. Haven’t seen a pay phone around these parts in I can’t remember when.
Are you referring to the Mom ‘n Pop corner store, phone booth, mailbox or the street w/o litter?
We still have one in front of our Post Office for off hours