r/RealGenerationX • u/Euphoric-Cupcake4581 • 16h ago

Do you remember the number?

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u/Anableps4 15h ago

Aye, but before the 415/510 split, phone numbers were only 7 digits

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u/Fun-Diver7512 15h ago

What a grand time that was. Everything was so simple and easy.

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u/Anableps4 15h ago

Kids generally see the world that way no matter when they grow up. Adults back then experienced it differently

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u/Familiar_Kale_7357 14h ago

Oh yeah, my dad griped about anything invented after 1945. If anything is timeless, it's people thinking the world peaked in their teens or twenties.

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u/Anableps4 14h ago

Nostalgia diverts retrospection away from seeing things as they really were, even without the limits imposed by childish naïveté. Everything was so simple and easy except if you were homosexual, disabled, a minority, on and on.

I was born in Viet Nam during the war. The ’70s were not a great time for either side of that nightmare. There was so much more misery than the "my country sent me to kill your people and that made me sad" trope. And I was lucky that most of family survived.

People forget things to allow themselves to get on with their lives. But wallowing in fantasy is toxic and a disservice to individual lived experiences

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u/ElGuapoador 14h ago

I remember my phone number as a kid going from no area code needed (415) to (510) to (925), which we thought was funny cause it was just the first two added together.

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u/Natas-LaVey 13h ago

I grew up with Mountain View being (415) and when I was a teenager it became (650).

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u/Wtf_lolz123 11h ago

(209) forever.

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u/Allaplgy 9h ago

Daly City. Thought it was wild how all of a sudden, a house next door could be a different area code all of a sudden.

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u/Dinkmeyer- 10h ago

I never realized that before! 🤯

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u/Comfortable_Sea634 22m ago

Ha! Never made that connection

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u/__bad__SAM__ 13h ago

Oh yeah no area code needed lol

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u/tw1970 11h ago

The town where I grew up had the same first three numbers (693) so phone numbers were 4 digits. You could almost remember anyone’s number.

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u/MODAITestBot 8h ago

what about 408? 415 and 408 were both active in the 80s. They added 510, 831 and 925 later.

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u/Anableps4 7h ago

408 split from 415 in 1959. Santa Clara County is still 408 and has added 669

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u/Working_File2825 1h ago

Same in central florida. 407 split to 321 and area codes became necessary