Hey Buddy, Can You Spare a Dime?

We have on our hands an endangered species.

The pay phone is quickly disappearing - following its forerunners the Pony Express, Telegraph, and the rotary dial telephone.

This phone is at the store where I stop most days for a delightful soda mix of Diet and Mt Dew (80% - 20% is my usual formula), and so far I've not seen anyone attached to the tether imparting vital information over the land line.

According to the American Public Communications Council, there are still about 500,000 pay phones left in the United States that process 1.7 billion calls each year.  That sounds like a lot.

But it's not.

As cell phones seem to be handed over to kids when they reach kindergarten (in case they need to call home or text a family-wide update), the pay phones have less relevance each day.

I'm not sure the last time I used one, but it's been a while.  In my reporting job and even during my insurance career, the sturdy communication devices provided a link back to the newsroom or the insurance help desk to help me on my way without having to go all the way back to the office to make a call.

Looking back even further, I can recall my dad stopping when we arrived in a town and checking the Yellow Pages dangling below the pay phone to find a motel (although those pages had usually been ripped out) and a place to spend the night.

As you go about your week, keep your eyes open for these former vital links to family and friends and recall those times you borrowed a dime or other coins to call home for a ride after the game or the boss to let them know you would be late or called the tow truck to come fix up the car.  Tell your younger associates at work or your kids about the noble pay phone - maybe pull up an episode of Green Acres so they can see Mr. Douglas climb the telephone pole to make a call - and remind them that just a short 100 years ago - the birth of the phone changed America forever.

Perhaps a fitting tribute to the pay phone would be giving it it's own Facebook page, or as a personal touch take a shot of one with your cell phone and use it as your 'desktop.'