All right kids: Sit down. You want to hear something crazy?
Back in the day — the last millennium — we did not have cellphones.
If we were out somewhere — say, Compo Beach — we could not text our parents: “Pick me up.”
We would have to use this device (below). It was called a pay phone.
Compo Beach, 1983. (Photo/Arthur Nager)
We would say — politely — “Mom, can you please come pick me up?”
Then we would wait. We had no screens to scroll through, until our mothers — not Uber — arrived.
I think we talked to each other. Or looked at the sky.
Somehow, we managed.
Phone calls cost a dime.
There was nothing more fun than walking by, sticking your hand in the coin return, and finding money.
Then again, that was when people still used cash.
A lot has changed. But look again at the photo.
Except for the long-gone pay phone — and the now-locked doors at the back of the bathhouse — a lot has not changed.
That’s part of the magic of Compo Beach. If you’re growing up here now: Enjoy it.
And maybe one day you’ll tell your grandchildren what it was like to text for a ride.
(NOTE: Click here for photographer Arthur Nager’s website. For archival prints, email artnager@gmail.com.)
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In 1962, at the golf range at the pay phone ( CL-9-9108) we called information and called the home of Cassius Marcellus Clay. His mother answered and we talked to her for about 2 minutes. It was two years after he won the gold medal in Rome. He won the Light Heavyweight Gold Medal!
Many of us could “punch” the payphone and make that call for a nickel…
Just think, Dave … you could have arrested yourself!
Thank God for the statute of limitations!! lol
You know what else has changed at Compo Beach that I miss very much?
Music.
In the 60s it seemed like everyone had a radio … and as you walked along the sand you’d go from one great song to another, because not everyone was dialed to the same station. Between that and the intoxicating smell of Chubby’s charcoal grilled cheeseburgers, life couldn’t have been better.
Of course way back then they were just little transistor radios, not boom boxes – so they didn’t get very loud. Do you think we could petition to bring back the transistor radio? (smiling) Believe it or not, you can still buy them.
Bring back the transistor radio and get rid of all social media!
Time on screens often replaces face-to-face interaction, which is more emotionally nourishing. Harassment follows kids home now. There’s no escaping it! Social media is a poison and I never had any and never will.
Dan’s 06880 is clearly and unequivocally social media. You always want to be inboard of the saw when you cut off the limb. I would respectfully suggest a little “self-restraint” might be in order.
I don’t have Facebook, LinkedIn, TikTok, Instagram, X, Signal, or WhatsApp. I do have 06880. Ergo. I have one social media.
It was such a mysterious device when I was small. I was a little afraid of it. I finally figured it out to the point where I learned (from my ne’er-do-well friends) how to put in a nickel and at just the right moment hit the coin return with the Mount of Venus on my hand which caused the nickel to divert and pay for a dime call.
A scofflaw, I know, but it was so satisfying. It wasn’t the nickel saved, it was the manuel dexterity. I have since turned my attentions to more meaningful things.
OMG, I bet my DNA was all over that phone, calling my mom to pick me up from the beach! With all of those pay phones (and booths) removed, I wonder if the underground “cables” still exist? Also, were some of those connected to above ground wiring too? Experts chime in please!
Yeah, but do you remember when even at Compo Beach there were no pay phones? That’s when we really had to talk to each other. Besides, who had the money to use a pay phone? We would just have to sit there and talk about all the ugly houses that were being built after people knocked down those log cabins we all used to live in. Thankfully, the stage coach ran till sundown so we could get home in time to write letters (remember those?) to the newspaper complaining about the politians ruining Westport.
There was a pay phone at Staples. You ask “who had money for a pay phone?”
My kids called collect for Joe Staples. Never accepted the charges, but I always knew it was time to pick them up at Staples