OPINION: Potpourri: Where have all the phone booths gone?

Sep. 14—As a child I was fascinated by telephones. If there was one around I had to play with it. I loved the sound the rotary dial made as a call was placed.

The process involved lifting the phone receiver, placing your index finger in the hole for the needed number and rotating the dial to the end stop, then removing your finger and letting the dial return on its own. Whoever thought something as ordinary as using a rotary dial phone would need an explanation?

My love of phones also applied to telephone booths and pay phones. Any time I could get close enough to one I had to check it out. That involved walking in, closing the folding door, pulling down the coin return to look for money, standing on tiptoes to reach the receiver, pulling it down and pretending to talk, before making a hasty exit when mom or dad yelled, "Get out of there!"

Phone booths and pay phones were all over the place in every town. They had to be. After all, when Clark Kent needed to shed his business suit to become Superman, he used a phone booth for his quick change.

Phone booths were scattered all around Abilene. The main one I remember was located under the triangle roof at Viola Corner on the northwest side of Third and Buckeye. Another location that jumps out was outside on the east edge of the former West's IGA, where Impact Sports and Fitness is today.

There was a wooden phone booth inside the now closed bowling alley. I believe it was lit and had an exhaust fan (probably necessary to dissipate all the cigarette smoke). According to my friend Margaret, one of her friends used it as a quiet place to read when she was a child during loud, busy league nights.

I remember going inside that old wooden booth not too many years ago when Joe Snuffy's Restaurant was there, before moving to its current location on West First Street.

Before my time, there was a phone booth on the southwest corner of the 1921 Telephone Building, now a private residence across from the Sunflower Hotel; another one was on the south side of 301 N. Broadway, (now LaFiesta) back when it was the Farmer's National Bank before it built its new building in the mid-1960s at 400 N. Broadway (now known as UMB Bank).

There was another at the Central Kansas Free Fairgrounds either in or near the bandshell that burned down in 1989. I know that because there's a photo of the band taken by it.

Besides phone booths, Abilene also had a number of pay phones on walls inside many businesses. I remember several in the now demolished Trails End Motel (and subsequent other names over the years) where the 24/7 Travel Store is now.

In more recent years, there were stand-alone phones on pedestals that stood on the edges of some parking lots so drivers could talk from the convenience of their vehicle, as well as some mounted on the outside walls of businesses.

But sometime during the last 20 years, phone booths and most pay phones disappeared. I think the last time I used one was in 2000 when we came to Abilene searching for a place to rent, using the classified section (something else that is nearly non-existent) of the newspaper to call potential landlords.

Today, pay phones are few and far between. Not surprisingly, the mass use of cell phones meant pay phones were no longer profitable. That, plus vandalism, and most likely other factors, led to their demise.

So what do you do now when your cell phone quits working unexpectedly when you're out on the road? That happened to me about four years ago when I went to a meeting out of town and had no idea where to go. When I tried to call, my phone inexplicably had no service. Fortunately, two women were outside taking a break and one offered to make a call for me on her cell phone to get directions.

As for telephone booths and pay phones, it's ironic that you can miss something you didn't even realize was gone.