My Grandfather used to call "Central". When asked he told everybody that was his girlfriend. I remember picking up the phone and the operator would say 'Number Please." But she never was all that friendly. Our numbers had a couple numbers and then a name. I think because we would pull pranks like 'number please' '812 Green' or something like that. Then we got dial phones. WHEE that was so much fun. We would answer to anything we wanted because it might be a wrong number... there were a lot... mostly kids testing out all the phone number combinations. Our number was one off from the morgue. I got in REAL big trouble when I answered "Morgue, you stab 'em we'll slab 'em" Dad was always the first or second person who got called when someone died....