Kansas City telephone exchange names

[mean]

Just when I get to feeling old...

Thanks, guys! 

[LenexatoKCMO]

Just when I get to feeling old...

Thanks, guys! 

Next they will start talking about where their favorite telegraph office was located. 

[loftguy]

Next they will start talking about where their favorite telegraph office was located. 

Western Union 119 Walnut, 2nd floor west. Vera was a honey.

[mean]

Did you arrive by horseless carriage?

[scooterj]

I love it.  I cannot remember my own phone numbers from more than 2 numbers ago, but "WEstport 1 7100" has been stuck in my memory all my life.

Oh and just to add to this, the house I grew up in in Blue Springs had a well and an outhouse, and my church had an outhouse and was heated only by an old Franklin stove.

[DanCa]

I'm so old, I remember when you didn't have to dial the area code for local calls

Maybe that's just a Denver thing since we have an overlay area code. Do you have to dial 913 or 816 in KC if you're dialing within your area code, or just dialing to the other area code?  Growing up in KC, even if you were in KS and called a KCMO number, you didn't have to dial the 816. 

[mlind]

And, in the golden oldies song category, Beechwood 4-5789

[lock+load]

I'm so old, I remember when you didn't have to dial the area code for local calls

Maybe that's just a Denver thing since we have an overlay area code. Do you have to dial 913 or 816 in KC if you're dialing within your area code, or just dialing to the other area code?  Growing up in KC, even if you were in KS and called a KCMO number, you didn't have to dial the 816. 

No area code required within the code, but 816/913 is required between the two.

[aknowledgeableperson]

No area code required within the code, but 816/913 is required between the two.

Yes for now, that is a recent development.  In the past for the KC metro area calls between the two codes did not require the area code first.  It was changed to that process since the area was running out of available numbers.  It was either that or establish a new area code for new numbers in the area.

[phuqueue]

Oh man I feel soooooooo old, I remember all the way back to the days of 867-5309.

[butter_breath]

I'm so old I remember gas for 19 cents a gallon and they vacuumed your car and cleaned the windows, checked the tire pressure and oil & water for that price.

[mlind]

I'm so old I remember gas for 19 cents a gallon and they vacuumed your car and cleaned the windows, checked the tire pressure and oil & water for that price.

And, when you were sort on cash, you would ask for $1 worth of gas.  Here is what I drove in 1960:

http://billstudepage.homestead.com/file ... rkcon1.jpg

And, don't get me started on 5¢ Cokes & candy bars.

[KCFutbol]

This is what I drove from 1969 through 1971, a 1957 Olds 88. It was 4-door, white with a black stripe, white and black interior. No A/C or Power steering. I loved that car. My parents bought it new in '57 when we lived in Chicago.

[butter_breath]

There was penny candy and the first MC Donald's to open in Kansas city. Man I'm getting old. I remember walking across the infield in the old stadium after watching Whitey with the Kansas City A's. They would open the gates and you would leave to your car that you parked in someone's driveway, for 50 cents to a dollar. One of the last games I seen there had Vida Blue playing in it, when it was the Royals.

[mlind]

My across-the-street neighbor owned the Nash/Rambler dealership on State Ave.  Their daughter (my friend) got to drive a Metropolitan.  I thought it was so cool. 

http://www.geocities.com/nashmetro_1961 ... ophoto.jpg

When I was growing up, you could get a day time driver's license at 14 - a scary thought.  To practice my driving skills, all the neighborhood kids would pile into my mother's car and we would circle around the parking lot of the church at the end of the block.

Sorry - a bit off the subject.

[DanCa]

This is what I drove from 1969 through 1971, a 1957 Olds 88. It was 4-door, white with a black stripe, white and black interior. No A/C or Power steering. I loved that car. My parents bought it new in '57 when we lived in Chicago.

I'd love to drive something like that.  I bet it could run down a Hummer! 

Funny though, when you started driving it, that car was 12 years old.  Cars really changed a lot in those 12 years.  If you think of a 12 year old car today (a '97), they aren're really all that different.  Or maybe it's just me.

[Slappy the Wang]

"Home need a little repair?"

"Caw"

Westport 1-7100

[jimb]

A bunch of us (who are getting some gray in our beards) got into this discussion a while back.  Growing up out in Indy mine was TE3 (Temple 3) and my friends were all CLifton2 or 4 (252, 254) or INdependence 1 (461).  My grandparents over by Indian Mound on the NE side were HUmbolt 3 (483).

"What's your phone number, Jimmy?"

"Tee-eee-3 Oh-3-4-1"

(why can I remember that, but the best I can tell you about my brother's number is that he is speed dial 6?)

When I was at UMKC in the early 80s, I remember by Advanced Comp professor writing her office number on the board as CR6-xxxx.  Even then that was quite the anachronism.

Remember the days when your family only had ONE phone number, and when people called it sometimes it just rang and rang and no one or no machine answered it?  Sometimes you'd get this thing called a "busy signal"?  And yet somehow, we survived.

[butter_breath]

Survived with three TV stations, am radio stations. The big treat was taking the 24 bus downtown with my grandmother and getting to pull the cord so the bus driver knew we needed to get off at the next stop. My first car was a 57 2 dr hard top Bel Air I bought for 300 dollars. I can still feel the breeze in my hair and see the national guard on top of the high school because of the riots.