“We may be the only phone company in town, but we try not to act like it.”
That’s the closing line in this ad for the Lorain Telephone Company, which ran in the Lorain Journal on March 7, 1972.
Fifty years later, the Lorain Telephone Company is no longer in town. In fact, it’s not on this plane of existence.
It’s a quaint ad, promoting the availability of telephone service representatives who were happy to help you choose a color of a Starlight phone, suggest where to put an extension phone or answer questions about your bill.
I’m sure many of these concepts would seem bizarre to today’s youth. Cell phones are often the only kind of phone they've ever known.
Who could have possibly predicted fifty years ago what phones would evolve into today: a portable computer in your pocket that is arguably your most important possession? You need it for just about everything you do, and that’s the way Apple likes it. (I’m a Tracfone guy myself.)
Anyway, I’m not sure what goes on in the CenturyLink building on W. 9th Street these days, or if there is even a human body working there. There’s no helpful telephone service representative there, that’s for sure.
I’m one of the few idiots people still with a land line with CenturyLink. I’m in the phone book (just like Steve Martin in The Jerk).
But for some reason, although my Vermilion phone number is correct, CenturyLink prefers to publish the address from when I last lived in Lorain more than three years ago.
I remember when Center came in in the Seventies, and phone service seemed to take a nosedive almost immediately. Lorain Telephone Company was like a neighbor, Centel like a landlord who didn't know jack, and couldn't care less.
ReplyDeleteDarn phone; that's supposed to say, "Centel".
ReplyDelete...Are we old enough to remember when phone numbers started with two letters? (Or for that matter, party lines - had one when we moved to Lorain in '65.)
ReplyDeleteWe were CHerry 4-5432.
ReplyDeleteYes I do, we were CHerry on Washington Ave. and my aunt who lived on the east side I believe was ATlantic. If you had a private line and an unlisted number you were somebody. Todd
ReplyDeleteAll this talk of phone numbers reminds me of that early 1980s song 867-5309/Jenny by Tommy Tutone.Can't believe it's been over 40 years since it came out.
ReplyDeleteBack then, you had to memorize phone numbers. I still remember a lot of my friends numbers from when we were kids. Today, I have no idea what number anyone is...........just look them up and hit dial.
ReplyDeleteI remember my current number,. and I even have trouble with that sometimes.
DeleteJust today, I called my brother and said out loud to myself (because nobody else will listen) "that's the only number besides mine that I know."
ReplyDeleteDaniel, you must be reading my mind for these articles!