A Long Story About How I Got a Rotary Telephone

[Jim King]

This project began, coming up on about two years ago, after my dad passed away. A while later my mom had no use for all his tools and some other stuff, so she decided to clear it all out and have a yard sale. My sister called me and asked if I wanted any of the tools. I told her I could care less about all the newer stuff, but I'd really like to have the oldest hand tools that my dad & I used to work on the cars and house with together when I was growing up, some old iron wrenches; half of which were sprung and worn, but had sentimental value, (actually I still use them on odd sized bolts or one might arbitrarily happen to fit some metric or oddly worn nut). Hmm, oddly worn nut, that might describe myself, he he.
I had told her I picked up a cheap turntable and some old Bill Cosby LP's, so when she sent the tools she also sent along a few LP's my dad had, and a pile of old 8-track tapes we used to listen to in the car.
Since I didn't have an 8-track player, I looked for and found a small one on Craigslist. Just a little spot in the corner next to my computer, I could pop in an 8-track or play a record, which always got me reminiscing.  A couple of particular memories of certain things got the bug in me, a leaf shaped ashtray, and the ol' wall phone. My mom always had to have a wall phone with an extra long cord, so she could work in the kitchen with the handset held to her ear, cradled on her shoulder. For whatever reason, I really wanted to find one of those old ceramic leaf shaped ashtrays too. I started looking around on ebay and saw that there was still some of that kind of stuff around, but not exactly what I was looking for. A couple of months down the road I found it in a thrift store.  Then Spring came & the yard sales, some magazines from the 60's for a dime, an old Kodak Instamatic with some flashcubes still in the case for fifty cents, (I heard a young lady, the daughter of the woman who sold it to me laugh and say under her breath, why would he want that, doesn't he know they don't sell film for that anymore.)
Then after my daughter moved out, and I had an empty room, just a little 10 X 12, thank God because now that it's getting full, I'm having to slow down and be more selective or trade up to something better. Strangely, while picking up stuff, all of it free from Craigslist, to furnish the room, I often ended up at peoples houses whose parents had died recently and were cleaning things out, And most often sentimental about the stuff, but had no room for it. But when I told them about my "Sixties Room", I could see that it comforted them that the things were going to be treasured and cared for. (I like to think that those situations were no coincidence, that The Man Upstairs synchronized some things to do whatever it was he was doing, to bring some comfort to a few of us who had just lost a parent.)
The name of the room has changed a few times. Since I started adding some stuff from the Seventies and a few things from the late Fifties. I finally decided to limit myself to the twenty years spanning between 58 and 78, which just so happens to correspond with the years of my youth, from birth to age 18.
At some point in the process, I realized I was recreating a room that was like my childhood bedroom and living room; Which made my brain nag at me once in a while, that it might be kind of weird, but not enough to stop me because I was having too much fun.
Now that it's sort of coming together, I still might reminisce once in a while, but the experience has changed a lot.  It's a place for new experiences. The kids and their friends like to hang out in there now (actually not kids, they're in their twenties.) My wife, friends and family are having some good times in there. Might play a Beach Boys album and end up talking about the hot rod and muscle car era, compared to what the kids are doing with cars nowadays. The room seems to have a positive effect on people's moods, seems to make them happy, inquisitive, sometimes just calm and quiet. I've noticed I might be listening / watching an old group on PBS in the living room and it might be hard to enjoy if my son, who is a musician (guitar), might be going on about this and that (he's at the age where he knows everything about everything), when I just want to listen to the song.  But in the "Groove Room", another name I call it sometimes. He'll sit there and listen to a whole album without saying a word.
One of my favorite movies is "A blast from the past", I've thought of making a sign for the door of the room with the words from that title on it. I re-watch that movie from time to time, what I like most about it, is that it shows the contrast in norms in etiquette between then and now, and when my son and I were talking about movies I said that's why I liked that one, because I could remember when people had good manners like that.  A couple of people said that because I've been putting this room together, maybe I was going through a mid-life crisis. I don't think so, I'm not above knowing that we can delude ourselves at times, but I think I'm just having fun. I know there are some other aspects involved, in conjunction with doing the room I've "coincidentally", found myself finding replacements for the rest of the old tools my dad and I used to use together- an old oil can, old school tune up equipment- dwell meter and such. I don't even have an old car to use the stuff on, but if I do I'm ready. So maybe besides enjoying the things, this collecting seems to be satisfying a void, of things lost along the way, and it seems to be a positive thing. I've found that I don't always have to figure things out, because something in the background takes care of that. If it matters, one day I might become conscious of a larger concept and say to myself, "Oh!, that's why I did that".  
So that is how I got a rotary dial telephone. Not the wall-phone like was always centrally located in my childhood home, but close enough for now. I haven't tried to recreate my old kitchen. BUT I do happen to have a few interesting kitchen and dinning room items squirreled away here and there.
I have a little caption for most of the pictures, (as the file name) for some of the things I've gathered together so far. It's still a work in progress. Often slowed down by things that have to be refurbished and repaired. I don't have much money to work with, so some things get drawn out for a while. I went through three old BSR record changers (all free) for the console stereo before I got enough various working parts scavenged, to put together one good working one. The second one I had to drag the whole monster of a console home just to get the parts for free, but I used the wood for a nice bonfire, and nice decorative wood piece off the front made a nice little display table. Besides the mini-bike, which belonged to my son, I bought back and am saving 'till my grandson is ten; Some of the other projects that I'll have to put some time in is in refinishing projects, I'm going to get the phones looking a little nicer, and the side table piece of furniture between the 2 chairs-  That I got in the middle of the night from a Craigslister, who happened to be cleaning out her garage at two in the morning. The ad read something like: I don't know if anyone would want this ugly hulk of a thing, but it's free. Needing something to put my lamp on, I emailed back- I'll take it. She said come on over. In person it was uglier than the picture, with a poorly done waterbase paint job, but I felt obligated to drag it home. At home I opened the drawer, with its unique nickel-plated pull, and stamped inside the drawer on a beautiful piece of oak was stamped: Albert Distinctive Modern Furniture · Shelbyville Indiana.  The oak was just some scrap they used to make the drawer. The finish is some great old dark teak veneer that I'm hoping to save. I did a little research and found out that the furniture maker did great pieces of late mid-century modern furniture and liked to work with exotic imported woods. But he was a better furniture maker than businessman, so the factory went bankrupt. I could only find a very few examples of his work, so I'll do me best to do it justice and preserve this piece.
At one point in the process of putting together the room, it just felt kind of manic, things stuck here and there, wherever I happened to find a space. But I decided to make myself sit down and get quiet and take it all in and decide how I was going to make it work. I decided that I'd make the room transition from 60's to the 70's from one side of the room to the other.
Christmas is coming in a few days. It seems everyone decided to get me things for my room. They asked me what I wanted; I gave them a couple of ideas I was thinking about. But mostly I gave them a couple of rules to go by: Smell it and make sure it doesn't smell musty. (That can be hard to get rid of sometimes, but can be done, so I make an exception once in a while for a great old album or book), and the other rule is- no barcodes.  So they've been having fun looking around vintage shops, used book and record stores and stuff. They seem real excited about it, should be a lot of fun.
Another great part of collecting some old stuff is all the great friendly and helpful people I've encountered along the way.  That little room has expanded my world some, and that's great too.

I'll attach some pictures for a little tour around the room, as it's coming along so far.

[Phonesrfun]

Jim:

All I can say is watch out!  Putting two or more phones on a shelf in one room leads to proliferation. 

I don't know why, but those phones seem to multiply all by themselves.

Act now, and keep those critters in separate rooms before it is too late.  Take my word for it, I know!

If you don't, soon you will be needing a bigger room, and eventually a bigger house, more shelves, and so forth, and you will wind up either spending all of what used to be your spare time working on a phone (or three), cruising garage and yard sales, having a set route to follow to hit up all the thrift stores in town, or staying up late hours on Craig's List, E-Bay, and the Phone Forum.  See, it's already happening.

Don't bother seeking help, there is no cure.

[Dennis Markham]

Interesting stuff, Jim.  I enjoyed reading it.  Looking at your pictures the first thing that jumped out at me was the Dennis The Menace book.  When I was a young kid, maybe 8-12 I read as many of those Dennis The Menace books as I could.  Must be the name.........

[Tom B]

Jim
I certainly know where you're coming from - after a certain age is reached the nostalgia gene kicks in big time,

[JorgeAmely]

.... cruising garage and yard sales, having a set route to follow to hit up all the thrift stores in town, or staying up late hours on Craig's List, E-Bay, and the Phone Forum.  See, it's already happening.

Don't bother seeking help, there is no cure.

McHeath:

For a minute I thought you were talking about Dennis M. 

[Dennis Markham]

Birds of a feather flock together.......

[m1898]

Tom B, I resemble that remark. Dennis, about your birds of a feather, my wife says we are all a little "cuckoo, cuckoo".