The other day, while riding the 12 bus back from Crossgates, I saw something that I hadn't seen in ages: a payphone. I distinctly remember the days when, as a child, I would sit in the front of the Grand Union in Ravena and irritate the operator by dialing zero on the phone that was barely within reach of my tiny arms. What happened to the art of carrying around a quarter or dime for a phone call? Or, dare I even ask, what happened to calling collect?
I remember when my dad went to Cellular One on Central Ave and decided to get my mother our family's first cell phone. Not quite the "Zack Morris" phone (see below), but pretty darn close. The display was strictly a Caller ID screen; there was no such thing as texting, and the thought of having a camera attached to a phone would have been absurd. I digress. Even when my family got our first family plan in 2002, there were still payphones at the mall. At school. At the local park pool. But where are they now?
