Sunday 19 February 2012

Tales From The Olden Days


Image: epic mahoney


Granny?"
Yes, my dear?

Does that say 'Phone' on the big light thing?
Yes, it does. Aren't you clever to be able to read that.

Why is that man there with his bicycle?
I expect he wants to phone somebody.

Yeees ?  But why is it  such a big box?
So that the person who wants to ring up somebody can get inside. Out of the rain, you know.

But the box is standing all by itself in a field. Wy would they put the box there? 
Perhaps the man doesn't want anybody to hear what he says. 

So, Granny, that man takes his mobile and rides his bike to that big box in the field, miles away from anywhere,  just so that nobody can hear him?  He must be having a big secret.



56 comments:

  1. ha i imagine it is quite the confusion for the younger generation to see the technology of our past...i like phone booths though...esp the big red ones...

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  2. OK, so here I am, reading this through (twice!) and still trying to figure out why the mention of the mobile. After all, he's at a phone box, and they have phones in them. A definite trousers rolled moment.

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  3. Great picture, love the colours.

    Greetings,
    Filip

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  4. Awwww, so precious! I can totally hear this conversation played out. :)

    Most of what we do doesn't make a whole lot of sense, when you really think about it.

    ~Shawna
    rosemarymint.wordpress.com

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  5. Yep, that's confusing, all right. But you did make a smashing conversation out of the picture, Friko! :-)

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  6. Some things I'm sure my grandchildren will never experience (and never miss).

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  7. Thats' cute! We still have quite a few phone booths in Canada!

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  8. hahahah!

    Ahhhh....so, so true.......!

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  9. That's a great story, Friko. I love it.
    I remember when cellular (mobile) phones were just new, and a friend told me her son had phoned her "from his cell" so I asked what he was doing in jail. I was perfectly serious, but she laughed at me.
    Generation gaps grow ever wider.
    K

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  10. I think the pay phones are a thing of the past here. I haven't seen one in a very long time.

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  11. I agree with BETH, phone boxes are far and few between these days :-).

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  12. Loved this.. I could imagine grandma and grandchild together discussing the ways of the world.

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  13. Tis a new wold, child!



    Bless you Friko

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  14. oh! So easy to comment!
    thank you-
    I have mine set to put new comments on anything over 3 days-fresh into my moderation que. And spam detection has kept much garbage out of my comment-parlour.

    Thanks for making it a pure pleasure to comment here again

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  15. Sly one, Ms. Friko,

    I almost bite on Tess’s prompt this week, for privacy is a thing of the past and a cherished thing to me. The ad mongers pray on our every word for their ‘optimized ads’. A secret kept today is a joyous event. We, too, the free, the proud and the brave relish our moments of stealth and solitude. But, you know what the old Cajun said, “Dazzle ‘em with brilliance, or baffle ‘em with bull shit.”

    God Bless America, for no one else will …

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  16. friko - i wanna say dance bike boy dance! you've got the lights, the space, the big bay behind you!!!! steven

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  17. Our Museum of History is actually inviting locals to (hand-) write letters to readers 100 years from now. This is part of a project that includes accounts of the past and culminates with accounts from the present to the future, a great idea I will want to fiddle with. You got a great start on it right here.

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  18. I like his glow in the dark security chain.

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  19. Obviously he needs the light of the phone booth to be able to see his cell phone. Really people!

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  20. Well done. Have you tried to find a phone booth lately?

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  21. Good Grief! Can no one else see? It's the Tardis, all spiffed up for Mardi Gras!

    I'm dying of laughter over here!

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  22. The reason that's funny is cause its so true. Phone booths? Pay phones?

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  23. phone booths- lost in the translation...

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  24. Very good, Friko. My daughters vaguely remember pay phones. Vaguely. My granddaughter already knows what a cell phone is and if you push a little button, it talks.

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  25. The conversation made me smile. Just recently on the bookstore, I saw a book with synopsis of living with typewriter people in a web 3.0 world. Interesting topic.

    Love the photo. :)

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  26. Just my kind of logic. Nice one!

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  27. Better a secret conversation than being startled by the person behind you in line suddenly striking up a conversation with the bud in their ear--LOL! ;)

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  28. How much longer will public telephones be available? Smelly, vandalised, but probably necessary for many years to come.

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  29. Loved the ending, Friko. My grandsons live in a world so different from the one I grew up in. :-)

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  30. Oh...how you made me laugh here. My kids hardly remember phone booths or other such archaic devices. And - I'm sure my grandchildren will be asking those same kinds of incredulous questions. Wonderful post!

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  31. it is true that the phonebox is a dying breed.

    Still, for those few remaining places where there is no signal...

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  32. Ssshh! Don't tell! He was talking to Ada! LOL

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  33. the thing is, there are many Americans who do not own a cellphone, believe it or not -- just as many don't have a computer, either. I have a cellphone, but it is used only for emergency calls inside my car. I guess progress is slow in many areas. Lol.

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  34. Haha, there are lots of things that are going to be talked about like that!
    Phones? In the future we shall just have a chip implanted and we'll speak into our wrists!!

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  35. A progresive would think the phone box become cell phone was wonderful. A reactionary would not like either. A regulator would have insisted even rural and poor areas deserve phone service, hence phone boxes in fields no matter what the 'shared' cost to everyone else.

    Everyone has a political position. You can't escape it. Neither can the little child. Dianne

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  36. loved the ending...
    good writing as usual

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  37. A fine photo of a soon-to-be-extinct species.

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  38. I remember the days, the phone calls to boyfriend, the smell inside the phonebox........... and I am pleased at progress as I text my granddaughter

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  39. I so want to know what the big secret is Friko. So does the grandchild I'm betting? What about Granny?

    I enjoyed this conversational response you've posted. Conversation isn't always used in poems, so it gives this writing a different but endearing spin. Very creative, Friko. Thank you for sharing.

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  40. Laughing. It's hard to see how far we've come, sometimes. Great conversation.

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  41. I wish we had booths around here. Cell phones only work in a few places on our county.

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  42. Love this. A friend and I were talking about things that kids born in the late nineties may not have seen. Depending on where they are, phone booths were among the things. And tv antennas on houses. Rotary telephones...

    But a phone booth was our first thought.

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  43. lol....big secrets, indeed! The things I've done in a phone box....*ahem*

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  44. Enchanting! How you take a wonderful visual and run with it!

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  45. Friko---by my calculations you left that comment on my blog in the wee, wee hours of the morning! Do I have to take my cell phone and ride my bicycle out to the big box in the field to call the Sandman to hasten over there?

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  46. Wonderful, Friko. That's exactly how the little pests are. Short on knowledge but always ahead of us on logic.

    Now . . .I think I know what's going on. He's not sure his mobile/cell phone is working. So he has stopped by the phone box/booth. He looks at the number on the phone. He keys in this number on his mobe. The phone in the booth rings out. HaHa. So far so good. Now he seizes the phone in the booth. He holds it to one ear, his mobe to his mputh. "Hello" he says, He hears himself in the booth's phone's handset.! Hooray! His mobe IS working. Happy again, he rides off into the sunset.

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  47. Love it !
    Have you heard the Four Top Hatters singing "45 Men In A Telephone Booth" ? Also incomprehensible if you're under sixty .

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  48. I sometimes see Picassoesque versions of things(before I realized that was a symptom of my condition, I thought the world was getting WAY more artistic)...& this pic did it for me.

    Yes, grandmothers can still give very valuable imput with the still-existing yesteryear products dotting a youngster's horizon. Grandparents are also excellent repositories of the family archives too.

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  49. I would ride out to the middle of nowhere just to see that phone booth! No need to talk. It's a rare finding these days.

    Love the conversation. :)

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  50. Hah! The little'ns always see the most obvious! Clever Magpie!

    Anna :o]

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