About a week ago, we made a trip to Charleston. They have a great Visitor Center where you can ask questions and get answers. We decided to take a historical tour in a small bus/van. It is a good way to get a feel for the city, to learn the history, and to see all the major areas. There is also a large parking garage right next door which makes it convenient so you don’t have to look for parking.
After the tour, we took ourselves to lunch at the French restaurant, Rue De Jean. It is located in a handsome two-story brick warehouse that was built in 1880. Inside there is rich dark wood, tin ceilings, and a delicious food selection.
Right before leaving, I asked directions to the restroom. When I saw the door, I smiled thinking maybe there was actually a phone booth behind it, and I could capture a photo of that door as well. No phone booth but a stand.
Are you old enough to remember these stands where they put one black rotary desk phone on it for all of the patrons in the restaurant? Makes you chuckle doesn’t it? One telephone for a room full of people.
Currently, if there are 100 customers, I’m guessing there are 100+ telephones not even counting the employees in that same room. 🙂
Do you remember the ‘old’ days when you left home without a phone?
Linked to Norm Frampton’s Thursday Doors, February 2, 2017.
Norm is the leader of the Thursday Door group, and he has a timely post this week about the tragedy that recently struck his home country of Canada which you can access by using the link.
Certainly I do, do you remember the days when you would get back home and check the answering machine located in the hall to see if anyone had called! Now we don’t even have a house phone!!
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I sure do remember, and we don’t have a house phone either. 🙂 When answering machines came out, we all thought we had really cornered the market on phone technology. Little did we know. 🙂
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So charming! It’s nice to see businesses in no hurry to whisk away the past. I do remember stands like that, and rotary dial phones – always black – perched on top. There were pay phones on corners everywhere, too. Ten cents to call mother from downtown to seek permission to buy a sweater when my sister and I went shopping as teenagers. And that was before there were malls!
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Funny you brought up the ten cents. I remember when we had to make a long distance phone call, you had to have a stack of coins and when they were deposited they would make a noise as they went into the system. 🙂
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It doesn’t seem so long ago, but now if I forget my phone I’m almost in a panic. Oh, the freedom we had! Rue de Jean is fabulous, one of my very favorites…hope you had a lovely time. Did you try shrimp and grits while on your visit to the Holy City?
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I haven’t so far, but it is certainly on my to-eat-list before I head back north. 🙂
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Charming place 🙂
I can only think of one restaurant where I remember a phone like that. Now I’m wondering if it’s still there…
I do recall leaving the house without a phone. I did it one day last fall, on accident, and my entire family spent the day texting back and forth over who’d upset me so much I wasn’t speaking to any of them! LOL
I felt fine. As you know, it’s not that odd when you traveled phoneless for most of your life 🙂
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Heck, I remember party line, Judy! It’s funny that now, if I forget my phone, I feel lost, although eventually I also feel free. I always have my phone for camera purposes, if nothing else.
janet
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I find myself wishing that phones had to be checked at the door as it seems many people focus more on the phone than on food or who is at table.
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Yes, you glance around a restaurant, and the vast majority are staring at their phones and not talking. It sure makes you acknowledge that the art of conversation is going by the wayside. Twenty years from now, I wonder if they will talk or text. They will probably just think it and it will be transmitted. 🙂
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That door is beautiful, Judy. A very nice find.
“Without a phone” yes, but never without a dime.
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Nice ones Judy. I remember rotary phones and I remember feeling annoyed whenever I had to call someone with lots of 8’s or 9′ in their phone number…it took forever to dial!
Touch-tone was the best invention since…well, the phone I guess 😉
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This is a very interesting subject:) Also, because still, I leave my house without a phone, more out of forgetfulness than anything, and am together with hubby, who never forgets his phone!
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Ours is reversed. My husband sometimes forgets his, but I always have mine because of the camera. 🙂 Mine should be referred to as a camera phone. 🙂
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Isn’t it interesting how we manage to marry someone who is our opposite (in some things)?
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I do remember the phone stand and yes, dime phone calls and party lines. Would you believe I almost never carry my phone with me unless I’m driving by myself.
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That’s interesting you don’t ‘always’ carry your phone. It sounds like the phone is still a piece of technology that you use when you want to – applause for you. 🙂
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I was just thinking the other day about how, once we left home, we were contactless. Hard to believe these days.
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I often think about how phones have changed just in my lifetime. It really is a wonder. Now they are tiny, and even take photos and videos!
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Ah, the good ole days! Nice door!
I leave the house quite often without my phone. I just ran some errands today and forgot it…again! 🙂
I figure if I really need to use the phone I can ask anyone around me if I can borrow their phone, and hope they let me!
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I remember when you’d have to look around for a phone booth and maybe walk a block or two. As you said, now days all you’d have to do is look at the person standing on either side. 🙂
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We survived without a personal phone in each and every pocket. Amazing, huh? We actually were out of touch with the world for HOURS AT A TIME OMG! I know, the mind totally boggles.
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I remember the days when we had a table and a chair near the phone, so we could sit and chat,…I’m sure our kids could not imagine spending so much time in one place…just for a phone call!!
I had a look at your link to the Charleston visitor’s centre, amazing buildings…what a vast, diverse, and wonderful land you live in!
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That Visitor’s Center was one of the nicest we’ve ever seen. We parked the car, walked up and told the person what we wanted to do and how we wanted to do it, and they matched us up. Then we walked outside and grabbed the vehicle. It was a great experience. 🙂
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Not only is there the little table for the phone, but I noticed it also has the shelf underneath for the phone book. Does anyone still use one of those?
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Good catch. I actually looked in there to see if there was by chance a book, but there wasn’t one. There is a telephone book here in the condo, and I had to smile when I saw it because it has been so long since I used one. They use to be the bible of numbers. 🙂
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… and whenever the new phone book came out, the first thing we did was look up ourselves 🙂
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What a treasure chest you have unlocked here! As much personality as these doors have, the stand seems to have even more; it sure seemed to kick off a whole bunch of memories for people. I love all these comments (as usual). Particularly I loved the one about hating to dial all those 8s and 9s. Oh, how primitive were our ways. My grandchildren do not believe we had just one phone and it didn’t go anywhere. Yep, no one answered the phone when we were out and yet the sun still rose the next morning.
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It is hysterically funny to think that the ‘sun still rose’ and life went on quite well without tweeting our every thought. I bet you can even remember when neighbors stopped by for coffee to catch up on news. 🙂
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I haven’t been in Charleston in years but I loved visiting–so genteel. We have several sweetgrass baskets we bought just outside the city–have you been seeing them for sale?
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Oh, yes, there are vendors on the road for miles. So, I waited until we were headed back and stopped to view their beautiful creations. Then I had sticker shock. WOW are they expensive. The smallest one was a size that you might put a set of rings in when washing hands for a mere $45. They went up to several hundred dollars for one that you might put some crackers in. I know there are hours of work invested in each one, but my heart wasn’t in paying that much money for a very small basket. I still stop and look every time I see them somewhere, but they are all out of this woman’s basket budget. 🙂
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True–I bought our baskets at least 20 years ago and they were expensive then. I do still love them, though.
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I totally remember those times, and my memory goes even more back into the past … Great post, thanks!
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I haven’t been to Charleston since my niece’s wedding (since divorced and remarried!) years ago but have vivid memories of the courtyard gardens. It’s a charming city, yes?
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It has a rich history with lovely homes. I didn’t realize how big the city was and how close all the homes and buildings were. It is one busy place. 🙂
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Your post brought back memories. I put my phone on flight mode at least once in the day and some of my friends are horrified that I would do such a thing, lol! 🙂
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Imagine that – going without a phone vibrating or ringing. LOL 🙂
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Great post. Perhaps the owners are trying to recreate the memory of having a (black) rotary phone with a cord so long you could stretch it through one or two rooms into the bathroom for a private conversation!
Our rotary phone sat on a huge desk in the living room. And that’s where you sat and talked…for ALL to hear. Where was the Privacy Act when we needed it?
People can’t dine in a restaurant without a phone in their ear or constantly texting. Apparently it is impossible for most people to shop for groceries without calling everyone they know in order to get their opinion as to which baked beans to buy. You wanna take a quiet walk? Fageddaboutit!! The other walkers are either screaming into their phones or their phones are screaming in their pockets!
Why, I can remember a time when you actually talked to a human, not an automated system. Ahhhh, sweet memories!
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You allowed me to have a huge laugh, and yes, to everything you said. One Saturday morning about 10 a.m., I’m in the grocery store. I hear this lady talking and glance over. She has her phone propped up on some fresh veggies while she chats with someone. It use to be Skype, but I don’t know what the current app is they use, but you get the idea. Here’s this woman drinking coffee at a kitchen counter talking to this shopper picking through for fresh apples. How I kept from laughing out loud and saying give me a break, please. 🙂
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I left home today without a phone – but only because I forgot it.
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I remember, when I was 3 or so, an old fashioned phone on a stand at my Aunts. When I was an older kid our phones were on the wall and for awhile there, out in the country, we were on a party line. As a middle schooler / teen, I had to try to get the phone cord to stretch enough so that I could lay on the floor around the corner and talk to friends…
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I went in an antique store today, and they had several phones. There was the one where you held the piece to your ear while you talked into the other piece, an old black rotary dial which I just had to try a 9 on, and an old black one that didn’t have a dial at all. I’d never seen one of those.
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