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Those old phone PRefixes

Letter from Roger Williams

Communications – May 2002 – Colorado Central Magazine

Editors:

Expressions for cold? How about Cold enough…to freeze the balls off a brass monkey; colder than a witch’s teat. (A few summer days here would be hot enough to melt the balls off the brass monkey).

As for the Year of the Mountains, there was also an International Year of the Quiet Sun, half a sunspot cycle from the IGY (Int’l Geophysical Year) when it was most active. This was back in the 50s or so.

I’m glad somebody else remembers named telephone exchanges (now called prefixes). I grew up in Milton 86, Mass. at HYde Park 3-3305 which became EDison 3-0572 when our phone got a dial. My dad worked in a Boston hospital at LAfayette 3-8200 while I joined the Appalachian Mt. Club (3 Joy Street) at LA 3-0636.

Went to boarding school in Concord, N.H. at CApital 5-3341, then to college in Cambridge, Mass. at UNiversity 8-7600 while their sister down the river was UNiversity 4-6900. All these numbers have been changed to Centrex dial your extension direct. Out here, a friend told me all those 44-numbers were HIllcrest.

I wonder if prefixes in the new 720 area code follow the 303 ones; i.e., will Boulder have the same ones in 720 as they do in 303?

Your article in a back issue on rhodochrosite was interesting once I found it; the very long URL (web address) doesn’t end in /htm, it ends in .htm.

Roger Williams

Boulder

Editor’s Note: Sorry for the typo on that URL — those critters are fraught with possibilities for error, even when it’s our own website. But for a quick find, try typing subject (rhodochrosite) and/or Colorado Central Magazine on a search engine like Google or Yahoo.