I’ve been feeling guilty about not doing more long-form writing on here lately for all of you who kindly read me. Sorry about that; things are busy, but I’ll get back to it and justify your subscription, I promise. Thought you might enjoy what I’ve been working on in spare time with Kevin while at his house. I have this 1950s Automatic Electric desk set telephone that’s been needing servicing. The ringer doesn’t work, but it does place and receive calls.
Thank you for sharing this story, and for returning the phone to its useful state. I love old technology...it is durable, and when it does need to be fixed, it can usually be done at home with a few simple tools. My spouse's grandma died recently, and we have her phone from the kitchen...an old rotary phone w the tangled cord. It still works perfectly.
I love the old technology, too, and remember those sturdy phones fondly. My grandmother had a pen-like gadget on hers that fit into the dialing holes so you wouldn’t ruin your manicure while dialing.
Funny you mentioned the quality of the screws back then. Although the Phillips head is a huge improvement over the old flat head screws for ease of use, modern screws are made of soft metal that strips out badly, and provides us all with daily frustration.
Yes! I can't remember the last time I didn't erode a screw after the first un-screwing. And that's being careful, applying downward pressure, using the correct screwdriver. It's bloody awful.
Robertson, eh? You must be Canadian, perhaps even a cousin of the late Gordon. (I actually know a cousin of the late Gordon, with a different last name. -- although they never met, they were related through the matrilineal line)
Robertson is, indeed, the square slot screw, and it is Canadian. To my knowledge, it’s not used in the USA at all, and most people have never heard of it.
According to some, it is connected to the Ford Motor Company. Robertson refused to license his invention to Ford, because he had gotten “screwed over” in the past by licensees (I’m sorry, but I can’t help myself when bad puns are involved!). Without a guaranteed supply, Ford turned to the Phillips-head screw, cementing its reign in American industry.
OK interesting. I prefer Robertson over Phillips, actually, if you have the proper fit, it has better torque transfer capability. It used all over the place here.
Josh, I love your appreciation for the workmanship and functionality of mid-century American products like the Western Electric-manufactured rotary dial telephones that I also grew up with in the 50's and 60's. This era was pre-push button dialing when phone numbers began with the first two letters of the exchange. I hope that you and Kevin are able to restore your black beauty relic to full functionality in our digital world!
What a great skill: knowing how to fix things, enabling them to be used for a lifetime rather than the length of a cellphone contract. Back in the early 1980s, when Ma Bell was broken up, I took advantage of the ability to purchase my phone, taking it with me to another state. It lasted for years and would perhaps be with me now except that I could not maintain it. . . . That was back when phone cords worked forever, zippers lasted forever, and my uncle would raise the hood of his truck and I could see the ground. It reminds me of the movie *Inherit the Wind* when Spencer Tracy, addressing an early twentieth-century jury, says that progress always comes with a price, that, for example, “you can have a telephone but you lose privacy and the charm of distance.” The truth of this is hard to appreciate in the moment, especially when everything seems to be breaking apart. I envy Josh and Kevin’s ability to time travel technologically, to broach the problem of distance with their own two hands.
When I was in college I spent two summers (1976-77) working on an assembly line in a Western Electric factory, hand-inserting various electrical components (resistors, diodes, capacitors, etc) into printed circuit boards that were then clipped short and sent through a solder bath. My line made Princess phones. The phone cases were made on site and you could tell what color plastic they were cooking that day from the smell.
The workforce on the electrical component assembly lines was almost 100% female -- it required a degree of fine motor dexterity that women were thought to excel at. The pay was good overall and very good compared to the alternatives available to women with no more than a high school diploma and often not even that. It was boring, hot, and noisy, but we had a union and were treated fairly by management.
Shortly afterwards the Bell system was dismantled in an antitrust consent decree. The factory, once one of the top five employers in Indianapolis, was shuttered. The last time I drove through the neighborhood (which was admittedly decades ago) it had been repurposed as a paintball arcade.
That telephone reminds me of simpler times, when phones lived on kitchen walls and never left the house. So that unless we were home, no one could reach us. That made camping out or going out of town for some R&R so much sweeter. Good news or bad news had to wait for us to recieve it.
Now such things can get to us anywhere, at any time. We are typically bombarded with information now. And because such things can come at us a million miles a minute, from every direction, we feel as if we have to keep up? But that's impossible for us mere humans.
Yet....we try and feel bad when we cant?
Love you Josh, HUGS
Thank you for everything.
You are doing great considering the mess we find ourselves in these days as a society.
Doing great tends to be hard to see in ourselves, so Im gonna remind you.....
I'm just considering what little I know that you have been dealing with....
The flood, moving, fighting city hall, you had and have a lot on your plate.
And you fix stuff too! That's amazing! My dad and son are tinkerers....it's a fading art.
Don't push yourself too hard, without you...there is no disaffected.
And without disaffected, well the world would definitely be a darker place.
I enjoy your love for quality retro - beautiful lanterns for one, and an appreciation for the old-school dial telephone. In addition to being well-crafted, long-lasting and fixable, they could also be used as a self defense weapon!
Off topic but I just listened to your discussion with Bret on DarkHorse. Thank you for all you shared, for being real, honest and quite frankly, inspiring. Sending kindness and love your way. 💕
Thank you for sharing this story, and for returning the phone to its useful state. I love old technology...it is durable, and when it does need to be fixed, it can usually be done at home with a few simple tools. My spouse's grandma died recently, and we have her phone from the kitchen...an old rotary phone w the tangled cord. It still works perfectly.
those kitchen phones had cords that could stretch around an entier ranch house from that era, lol!
At the risk of sounding like a geezer, I miss those days of excellence in the products that were a part of our daily lives.
I’m 68 and can still remember the heft of the cold metal as I dialed.
I love the old technology, too, and remember those sturdy phones fondly. My grandmother had a pen-like gadget on hers that fit into the dialing holes so you wouldn’t ruin your manicure while dialing.
Funny you mentioned the quality of the screws back then. Although the Phillips head is a huge improvement over the old flat head screws for ease of use, modern screws are made of soft metal that strips out badly, and provides us all with daily frustration.
Yes! I can't remember the last time I didn't erode a screw after the first un-screwing. And that's being careful, applying downward pressure, using the correct screwdriver. It's bloody awful.
Agree and agree. I really do appreciate the replacement of flat head screws with Phillips head, or Robertson. Much easier to use.
Robertson, eh? You must be Canadian, perhaps even a cousin of the late Gordon. (I actually know a cousin of the late Gordon, with a different last name. -- although they never met, they were related through the matrilineal line)
Thx. No relation. Is Robertson the Canadian name for square head? What do you call it?
Robertson is, indeed, the square slot screw, and it is Canadian. To my knowledge, it’s not used in the USA at all, and most people have never heard of it.
According to some, it is connected to the Ford Motor Company. Robertson refused to license his invention to Ford, because he had gotten “screwed over” in the past by licensees (I’m sorry, but I can’t help myself when bad puns are involved!). Without a guaranteed supply, Ford turned to the Phillips-head screw, cementing its reign in American industry.
OK interesting. I prefer Robertson over Phillips, actually, if you have the proper fit, it has better torque transfer capability. It used all over the place here.
Josh, I love your appreciation for the workmanship and functionality of mid-century American products like the Western Electric-manufactured rotary dial telephones that I also grew up with in the 50's and 60's. This era was pre-push button dialing when phone numbers began with the first two letters of the exchange. I hope that you and Kevin are able to restore your black beauty relic to full functionality in our digital world!
There might be some money to make with that skill.
What a great skill: knowing how to fix things, enabling them to be used for a lifetime rather than the length of a cellphone contract. Back in the early 1980s, when Ma Bell was broken up, I took advantage of the ability to purchase my phone, taking it with me to another state. It lasted for years and would perhaps be with me now except that I could not maintain it. . . . That was back when phone cords worked forever, zippers lasted forever, and my uncle would raise the hood of his truck and I could see the ground. It reminds me of the movie *Inherit the Wind* when Spencer Tracy, addressing an early twentieth-century jury, says that progress always comes with a price, that, for example, “you can have a telephone but you lose privacy and the charm of distance.” The truth of this is hard to appreciate in the moment, especially when everything seems to be breaking apart. I envy Josh and Kevin’s ability to time travel technologically, to broach the problem of distance with their own two hands.
Remember fix-it shops, Leslie? They're gone now.
Yes I do! Though I never went into one.
When I was in college I spent two summers (1976-77) working on an assembly line in a Western Electric factory, hand-inserting various electrical components (resistors, diodes, capacitors, etc) into printed circuit boards that were then clipped short and sent through a solder bath. My line made Princess phones. The phone cases were made on site and you could tell what color plastic they were cooking that day from the smell.
The workforce on the electrical component assembly lines was almost 100% female -- it required a degree of fine motor dexterity that women were thought to excel at. The pay was good overall and very good compared to the alternatives available to women with no more than a high school diploma and often not even that. It was boring, hot, and noisy, but we had a union and were treated fairly by management.
Shortly afterwards the Bell system was dismantled in an antitrust consent decree. The factory, once one of the top five employers in Indianapolis, was shuttered. The last time I drove through the neighborhood (which was admittedly decades ago) it had been repurposed as a paintball arcade.
That telephone reminds me of simpler times, when phones lived on kitchen walls and never left the house. So that unless we were home, no one could reach us. That made camping out or going out of town for some R&R so much sweeter. Good news or bad news had to wait for us to recieve it.
Now such things can get to us anywhere, at any time. We are typically bombarded with information now. And because such things can come at us a million miles a minute, from every direction, we feel as if we have to keep up? But that's impossible for us mere humans.
Yet....we try and feel bad when we cant?
Love you Josh, HUGS
Thank you for everything.
You are doing great considering the mess we find ourselves in these days as a society.
Doing great tends to be hard to see in ourselves, so Im gonna remind you.....
I'm just considering what little I know that you have been dealing with....
The flood, moving, fighting city hall, you had and have a lot on your plate.
And you fix stuff too! That's amazing! My dad and son are tinkerers....it's a fading art.
Don't push yourself too hard, without you...there is no disaffected.
And without disaffected, well the world would definitely be a darker place.
I enjoy your love for quality retro - beautiful lanterns for one, and an appreciation for the old-school dial telephone. In addition to being well-crafted, long-lasting and fixable, they could also be used as a self defense weapon!
Nice. I love that you love repairing things. And appreciate good timeless design. I do too.
Off topic but I just listened to your discussion with Bret on DarkHorse. Thank you for all you shared, for being real, honest and quite frankly, inspiring. Sending kindness and love your way. 💕
That's really kind of you to say, and I thank you for it. Glad you enjoyed the talk. I sure did. Bret is aces.
It's beautiful!
You could literally kill someone with one of those phones, they're so solid. Good on you for making it usable again.
Plus the older stuff was way more environmentally friendly. My God, the disposable crap of today!