when's the last time you used a "payphone"?

[labworm]

The payphone was actually the pioneer of talking fast and getting to the point.

 

[Arik]

2008 Schipol international airport Amsterdam, Netherlands. Landed, needed to get in touch with my ride but my cell didnt work there (obviously). They have fancy pay phones that took credit cards, of course. Made the call!

Sent from my DROIDX using Tapatalk 2

 

[Kinman]

I have gotten by so far just fine without a cell phone, on the job I had before I retired we had radios in the trucks and on our person but no cell phones were issued. When someone needed to contact me they would call my foreman who would then call me on the radio, I would then run a pay phone and call whoever it was. I knew where they all were in town and could get to a pay phone within an easy 5 minutes. I used a payphone late last year to contact my daughter in law that wasn't home where she was supposed to be after about an hour wait.
I was on a deer hunt a couple years ago and told my wife I would call her just as I left civilization at the last gas station, I pulled into the station and filled everything up, went in paid the bill then went around the corner of the building where the phone booths were, they were all empty. I went back into the store and asked what had happened to the phones, the gal told me "The phone company came in and pulled them." I asked her were the nearest pay phone was and she said "Probably where you last came from, those were the last pay phones in the area." She was kind enough to let me use the store phone...*******ed cell phones

 

[Old 44 Guy]

I worked for Pacific Telephone for 38 years in Calif. Retired there in 1988. I installed & repaired hundreds if not thousands of pay phones. I last tried to use one in Redding, Ca. about 10 years ago. It was privately owned & would not work. Cell phones put them out of business.

 

[V1 Rotate]

I can remember the event but I can't pinpoint the date. In the 90's as a new junior regional airline pilot, I had what we call "reserve duty" obligations, in other words, on certain days if I got a call I would have to be at the airport within 2 hours ready to fly. This was before cheap cellphones, and the ones out there were about the size of a shoebox, so everybody carried a pager. It was an early spring wonderful day in the Cleveland area and I was running errands just glad to be out in nice clear 50 degree weather. The pager went off, and I dived into a semi-country gas station with a phone booth out by the corner and returned the call. Pretty bummed about going to work that day, and I'm always happy to go fly usually. Guess it was about spring 1997. Got my first cellphone shortly thereafter (my wife had one provided by her employer, so I was familiar with what was out there).
This was about the time that most frequent flyers and airline crew stopped carrying suitcases and got suitcases with wheels on them!
Bill S

 

[J. R. WEEMS]

???? I think they were a nickel??

 

[Brian41]

My flight to Italy in 1973 got all messed up. Matter of fact it got worse the next day as Flight 110 I was scheduled to be on got bombed in Rome airport.
Anyway I got some dollars changed to Lira in Rome and made my way on a train to Aviano where I got dropped off at a almost abandoned rail station. To my delight I found a pay phone with some instructions in English on how to call the air base. My lira coins didn't fit in the slot though and some kind Italian gentleman exchanged my coins for phone tockens and who would have thought? My call got through and a driver showed to transport me to Aviano AB. I always kept some Italian phone tockens in my pocket after that.

 

[Onomea]

Must have been an airport somewhere in the 1990s.

One pay phone call I recall was from a phone on Broadway, Upper West Side, NYC, in 1981. I used over $20 in quarters for a short call to my then girlfriend (and now wife) in Japan. Seems to me I spent more time listening to the kerchunk of quarters dropping than I did to her...

Nowadays I find Skype just amazing.

Or how about letters? When is the last time you sent a letter just to communicate with family or friends, rather than email? Or received one? And no fair counting thank-you notes or birthday/Christmas cards. I think I kept up the letter habit longer than most as my mother, God rest her soul, never did learn to use email or a computer, other than for playing solitaire. So until she passed in 2011 we would exchange the occasional letter in addition to weekly phone calls.

What was nice about letters, when you were far from home or away from someone you cared for, was that you could treasure the letter, taking it out to read, over and over. My mom kept every letter my father sent her from the Pacific in WWiI, and he kept many of hers as well. We still have those.

 

[VAPA]

Each day a fellow would set a small table and two chairs along with a phone connected to a wire ran from a auto repair business across the street from the shop I was working at in Mongolia. You simply paid him to use his phone, luckily my cell phone worked.

 

[kozmic]

There's a "men only, members only" club near my home town where you check your cell phone and keys at the bar (CC is fine, BTW). The bar keep will give them back to you when you leave (keys only if you're able to drive). It is pretty laid back. Great selection of beer and spirits. They converted the ladies room into a walk-in humidor. Awesome finger food.

The only games are shuffle board, a putting green and a couple old cork dart boards. Always sports on the tv's but the volume is down low. Usually a low-dollar, friendly poker game in the corner. Never any hassles or arguments. Peaceful!

The only phone allowed is a pay phone. Out going calls (except for a cab or a ride) are frowned upon. There's a note on the wall above the phone that says "Tell his wife he's not here" to deal with incoming calls. Been that way for years.

I used it to call a buddy for a lift back to his place when I was in town for a reunion back in the summer of '97 and got a bit...um...sideways.

 

[GaryS]

I worked for Pacific Telephone for 38 years in Calif. Retired there in 1988. I installed & repaired hundreds if not thousands of pay phones. I last tried to use one in Redding, Ca. about 10 years ago. It was privately owned & would not work. Cell phones put them out of business.

Yes and no. If you drive through some sections of Boston you will see cell phones on the outside of small convenience stores. My daughter noticed that and asked me who uses pay phones these days.

The answer is simple.

Drug dealers.

They can make calls using calling cards and not be traced. The phones are on the outside of the stores so that they can be used even when the stores are closed. Also, they are outside so that the people who own them can deny knowing what they are used for.

Drive through during the night hours and there will be people on those phones. Most of them don't take incoming calls, either.

 

[skennedy]

I use one everyday. I have the one below hanging on the wall by my computer. A friend of mine bought a couple of Western Electric payphones that had been restored a couple years ago and I bought both of them from him. I gave one to my brother for his game room. They work without money, but you can drop in a quarter, dime or nickel and hear it ding.

 

[foxeye]

They started to slowly dissapear in this town quite awhile ago. Before that the phone books started to dissapear so dropping by a phone booth to find a number was pretty much out of the question. I do not even remember when I even saw the last pay phone or phone booth. All the ones that used to be on the outside wall of a convienience store have all been removed as have the phone booths by gas stations etc. Just a thing of the past.

 

[straightshooter1]

I'm old enough to remember when they were a nickel. Then, in the service in the 60s, they were a dime. Then they went to a quarter.

Then God smiled on me and I discovered cell phones. I bought my buddies old one (he paid about 4k for it) for $300 and it was the best one I ever had. Looked like a walkie-talkie, but worked well.

Now I have an Iphone 4S. I didn't think I'd use many of the features, but found I do-the net, email, solitaire, etc.

I don't miss pay phones one bit (most of which took my money and didn't work).

I don't quite understand some posters not having one. You can get a cheap one at Walmart or Sams or the drug store, throw it in the console, and use it only when you REALLY need it.

Great tool.

Bob

 

[quneur]

About 6 months ago. Was at a store trying to use my debit card. The store would not accept it and my phone battery went dead. Used payphone to call the bank who said their system was momentarily down and I had to wait 1/2 hour.

 

[adwjc]

My club just had theirs removed from the clubhouse.

We always kept it for those "emergencies"' that never seemed to happen, just in case.

We had to pay a monthly fee and it didn't make a penny for us.

We just installed a VOIP using the package that provides our cable service, we set it up restricted to local & 911 only.

 

[geoff40]

I see payphones getting used at truck stops a lot still. There are still plenty of truckers who don't carry cell phones, or use them to conduct their business, it is in fact an offense that can cost them their CDL if they are caught on the phone while driving.
A phone booth, on the other hand, thats an endangered species. I know of 2 of them in NH. Neither one will go anywhere any time soon, unless the phone company pulls the plug on them.

 

[boykinlp]

I last used one a couple of years after I said "Hello Sarah, can you get me Juanita at the diner?"

 

[sheepdawg]

The last time my pager went off.

 

[Moonman]

I SAW ONE, yesterday, but I didn't use it.