Community Chat

[CatsyCline]

1963 Post Offic e Sign:

[CatsyCline]

my parents rented an apartment for a few months in florida for my Dad's work .

the landlady had a party line. we were not to touch the phone but...

i picked up the receiver once and listened in to a couple of teenagers. the boy was telling the girl what a beautiful singing voice she had.  even at that age (8)  i could tell he was totally bs-ing and schmoozing her.

[sunshine45]

i dont remember a time when there werent five digit zip codes.

i DO remember our first phone number.....will never forget it for some reason. it began with PLAZA (PL).....7 digits total.

[GingerPeach]

Yes, I was, and when named phone prefixes became numbers, too.

As to efficient mail delivery, I have no idea how it's sorted these days, but I have less faith in USPS than I do in UPS for accurate package deliveries.

I worked one summer as someone who sorted mail and drove the little truck and picked up mail from the street mailboxes.  We sorted via the old system of manually reading the envelopes, and tossing them into cubbies that matched the addresses.  (Those of us who were summer help did not deliver mail.)  

It was all very old-fashioned - this was in the late 60s so clearly no electronic reading of the mail was happening then.  It was all like you'd see in some old Western at the local general store/post office combination.

[Puzzle Piece]

Yes, I was around when zip codes were introduced. 

[nrm]

I'd be happy if my mail carrier would actually deliver my mail - to me! Some of my neighbors get it and are very kind to pass it my way. 

[madcity411]

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@Zhills wrote:

I worked as a long distance telephone operator for a few years  when they were using NAMES for prefixes instead of area codes.   I took this call one night.

"Operator, I want to call 555 -1212 in this city.  And, Operator, you'll have to go through the TOWNHALL there to get that number!"  (TO 555-1212) 

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That long distance operator would have connected you to a directory assistance operator with that number!  Lol Townhall, I think not!

[gidgetgh]

I remember before there were zip codes.  (I'm 60).

I lived in Quincy MA.  We were Quincy 69 MA.

[qualitygal]

Yes, there were area codes, then zip codes.

[Cranberries]

I didn't even know that zip codes didn't really exist until the 1960's. Learn something new every day! ☺