Driving by the Corpus Christi library this morning I saw a person talking on an outside pay phone. Such instruments are hard to find. Cell phones have replaced them.
In my younger years the PHONE BOOTH was a common instrument. They would often be in a hotel lobby or at bus or train stations. Sometimes they were simply at a busy downtown corner or at a gas station. They were on college campuses.
Several things were assured with a public phone booth: They would smell like stale tobacco smoke. You'd carry that aroma with you after being enclosed in one. The phone book, if there at all, would be riddled by torn pages or even sections missing. Often the phone book had walked off. That was, of course, when you desperately needed it to find a number. Now you would have to pay an operator for the number.
Phone numbers would be written in every available space. Sometimes a name would be there. Hardly ever was there graffiti or four-letter words. A certain respect still existed back then.
When you quickly needed to make a call the booth would be occupied by some love-struck girl or guy trying to patch up a relationship. Local calls could go on forever. They usually did. The person inside never looked outside. They didn't want to see your anxious look. However if you had just entered a phone booth to make a call, a line would soon form outside and you were made to feel guilty for even being there.
Long distance calls cost. An operator or voice would be heard telling you to deposit such and such amount...for three minutes. It was easy to drop a coin on the floor during the deposit episode. It would roll into some secret hideaway where you and the metal cord could not reach. While you searched, that voice to "deposit" could be heard again and again.
Three minutes would go by quickly. The voice interrupts with another call for money. Now it was hang-up time. You are hoping all the information needed was taken care of.
I-Phone, cell phone, whatever kind of gadget users, should give your little phone a kiss or a hug. You CANNOT imagine how great they are when compared to the PHONE BOOTH. I can faintly hear the voice....."deposit seventy-five cents, please!" . (That's my lunch money!) .
