Ferris Bueller's Day Off : Phone booths in school???

Phone booths in school???


I'm watching the movie right now and its one of my all time favorites but I was just wondering since when does a high school have phone booths??? Usually. At regular high schools if you need to call someone you use the office phone and that's usually just for emergencies not casual conversations on if someone's sick or not...

Re: Phone booths in school???

My high school (in Aptos, CA) had two payphones outside of the gym. Our middle school had one too, in front of the office which I used after baseball practice to get picked up.

Re: Phone booths in school???

THIS!!!

We had them outside the theatre (auditorium), outside the Boy's gym, both inside and outside, and I think either inside or just outside the cafeteria (that's where dances took place). We likely wouldn't have been allowed to use the office or teachers' phones.

Re: Phone booths in school???

my school had a bar with 10 beers on tap.



***
Thread ender.

Re: Phone booths in school???

I went to high school in the 80s, and we had pay phones.

Re: Phone booths in school???

Before the advent of cell phones, you could find a payphone pretty much anywhere. My high school had a couple near the gym.

Well, back in the olden days…

There were no cell phones. If you wanted to make a phone call, you had to find one attached to the wall and put a quarter in it.

** Well, Hip-Hip-Hooray for your cheap climax! **

Re: Phone booths in school???


My middle school had phone booths and that was in the early '90s. What's the problem?













--------------------------------
I did sixty in five minutes once...

Re: Phone booths in school???

My middle school had a payphone, but without a booth. That was 2004-2007. My high school had payphones. Some didn't work. They were near the lost and found without a booth. That was 2007-2011. My community college had a security office phone. That was 2011-2013. My four year university has a payphone, and a free resident phone. This is in 2014.

Re: Phone booths in school???

I remember my high school had pay phones as well, I don't remember if we had them in middle school and elementary though but I'm guessing they did in at least middle school. Traditional phone booths though I'd assume are highly unusual though.

Re: Phone booths in school???

I went to high school from '88-'92 and we had three pay phones outside the cafeteria. Most of the other high schools in the area also had them.

How old are you?

Re: Phone booths in school???

Because of my family's situation when I was in high school I moved a lot. With that said, every HS I went to had a payphone. Usually located in or somewhere outside the cafeteria.

Re: Phone booths in school???

I started high school in 1986, graduated 1990....my school had four payphones (not booths, but other than that it was the same) at the front entrance....I used them often over the course of those four years because I didn't own a mobile phone...oh wait, they weren't available then like they are now...

perhaps you should have spoke to someone that went to high school during that era and asked them about this before you posted and made a fool of yourself

Re: Phone booths in school???

I've always had a payphone at my school.

Graduated in 2005.

Re: Phone booths in school???

I think it depends on the school.

My low-income, inner-city schools in the '90s never had payphones. You did have to go to the office and ask for them to make a call for you. I only ever saw them in movies. I think nicer schools in better districts had them.

We didn't have vending machines either.

Re: Phone booths in school???

Yeah people forget that most American movies feature the middle-class rather than the projects so if there's a school it'll be a nice one, I'm surpised no one asks "Why does the house in Home Alone have 22 rooms?" when spotting these 'oddities' in movies.



Properly read, the Bible is the most potent force for atheism ever conceived. -Isaac Asimov

Re: Phone booths in school???

My school had pay phones, and I came from a small town in Michigan. This was in the 90s. Perhaps they were more common by that point than they were in the 80s. They're probably gone now, since pay phones are almost extinct.

Post deleted

This message has been deleted.

Re: Phone booths in school???


I'm watching the movie right now and its one of my all time favorites but I was just wondering since when does a high school have phone booths??? Usually. At regular high schools if you need to call someone you use the office phone and that's usually just for emergencies not casual conversations on if someone's sick or not...


This was in the 80s. Pay phones were everywhere including high schools. Now days, you don't see them around anymore because everybody has I-Phones but back then they were as common as ever.

Re: Phone booths in school???

My high school had payphones. So did my jr, high,

++++++
Love means never having to say you're ugly. - The Abominable Dr. Phibes

Post deleted

This message has been deleted.

Re: Phone booths in school???

When I was in HS we had a payphone to use between classes, lunch or after school. People didn't have cell phones back then and if the school caught you with a (gasp)beeper, they would assume you were a drug dealer and turn it over to the DEA. Said so in the student handbook.

"The end of the shoelace is called the...IT DOESN'T MATTER!"

Re: Phone booths in school???

Dunno about highschools back then, but the local college I hung around at in the 80s (my Dad taught there) had two phone booths around the corner in the front lobby.

Re: Phone booths in school???

proof right here, vintage footage from a real high school in 1989:
https://youtu.be/gxqjoaQYxnw?t=1s

Re: Phone booths in school???

My HS way back then had two phone booths, one outside the cafeteria and one outside the auditorium.

They were hardly used except in emergencies. Kids actually liked to talk to one another face to face back then.

Re: Phone booths in school???

I was at high school in the 90s and we had a pay phone.

________________________________________
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GAIJ3Rh5Qxs

Re: Phone booths in school???

Bewildered by this, huh? Unless you were in a phone booth-free high school back then, this is a funny thing to ask.



You want something corny? You got it!

Re: Phone booths in school???

Late '60s, early '70s our junior high schools and high school each had one pay phone on the wall in the gymnasium lobby, and our high school also had a phone booth outside the auditorium. 10 cents for a local call, and they had phone numbers so the parents could call you back.

Re: Phone booths in school???

I was in high school in the early '90s and we had a phone booth.

-Di

Re: Phone booths in school???

My high school had a couple of pay phones outside the office. People rarely used them though. If you had to call your parents to come get up or something, you usually called collect and they denied the charge. They knew to come pick you up and you didn't have to spend a quarter or whatever it was.

Re: Phone booths in school???

I've heard that SOME mobile phones STILL existed in the 80s, they were just nowhere near as accessible (and advanced for that matter), popular and far more expensive so not too many people, especially ordinary teens, had them.

I wonder though - just how many LIVES have mobile phones saved today, how did people manage to go outside without them and not fear for their lives etc?

The greatest trick the Devil has ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist!

Re: Phone booths in school???

Can't remember high school, but my middle school had a phone booth just outside the changerooms of the indoor swimming pool. We all knew the number and would regularly call it when home sick.

It would be quite normal. Many schools also include facilities used by the public at large and in the era before cell phones and mass communication it would be standard to have phones for people using the facilities to call for rides home, cabs, etc.

Re: Phone booths in school???

I was in High School in the 1980's. Our school had at least 9 payphones.





Hitler! C'mon, I'll buy you a glass of lemonade.

Re: Phone booths in school???

How big a thing were pay phones to High School students in the 80s? For something (first day of senior class?) we got a card with a few quarters laminated into it. To be used to call a cab (number on the card IIRC) if we were out and too drunk or friends were and we didn't want to die riding with them.

Because all you need is a quarter. Pay phones? They are everywhere.
Top