Happy Birthday, Icarus (91!)

[Magdalena]

[Tank]

Happy New Orbit Day!!!

[Dark Lightning]

Happy Birthday!

[xSilverPhinx]

Happy Birthday, Icarus!

[Dark Lightning]

Hey, It's Silver! Where ya been girl? I can say that, as I am an old man. 

I'm 68, and TBH, I had NO expectation of being alive at this age, given the early deaths (generally at 58 or less, with two exceptions) of males in my family.

[hermes2015]

Happy birthday, young man!

[Tom62]

Happy Birthday. Van harte gefeliciteerd. Alles Gute zum Geburtstag.

[Recusant]

Hurrah! I wish you many happy returns of the day, Icarus.   

[Ecurb Noselrub]

Quite an accomplishment! Congratulations on having excellent genes!

[billy rubin]

do you remember from before when cities were invented, when everybody lived in grass huts? when my oldest was six years old, he accused me of that, and i'm younger than you are

[Icarus]

Thanks for the greetings everyone.         You are my favorite people and that is not just because my previous favorites are all dead.

Yep, Billy I can remember some old stuff...................Such as Telephones that  were on "party lines". That meant that when the phone rang it would also ring at several other places.  My particular ring was one long and two short rings. The other people on the line heard the ring code and knew that it was not for them.  They could pick up and listen to your conversation if they were busy bodies.  Damned few secrets could be kept in those days.

[billy rubin]

shoot you remember way old stuff

ill bet your telephone number only had four digits

[Dark Lightning]

We had a party line when we finally got a phone, which was in the early '60s, after living in that house for several years. We shared a line with the next door neighbors. Fortunately they were decent people. Don't know if they ever listened in, though.

[Tank]

We had a party line with our upstairs neighbour when I was a kid. Also in the 60's

[Icarus]

My reference to party lines was for the early 40s.  Yes Billy, I remember my four digit number. It had the prefix Y because it was in the Ybor City, the predominantly Spanish, part of Tampa.  The number was Y3498.  Why in hell can I remember useless things like that but sometimes fail to remember what day it is?  I later lived in a different part of the city at 1200 East Ida street.  Zip codes did not exist at that time. It cost 3 cents to send a first class letter.  A post card cost one cent.

One of my great interests was crystal set radios. I experimented and built many of them. My highest achievement was being able to get radio station WIND from Chicago. Sunday nights I could listen to one of my favorite all time commentators: Dave Garraway.  That was maybe 1946.  To be able to capture a station that far away required a huge antenna and clear weather.  I had built the colossal antenna of clothes line wire.