Is That Clark Kent Walking Towards The Phone Booth?

When I was a kid the ten cent comic book ruled! Our parents would have preferred that we read "real" books but at least we were reading. Dick Tracey was supposedly the greatest detective ever, and he had something that seemed really amazing back then: the two-way wrist radio! It was barely bigger than a wrist watch and he could talk to police headquarters with it! He didn't need to find a pay phone or walk around with a pocket full of change.

Another favorite comic book was about Superman, the Man of Steel. He wore a cape and he could fly. I'm sure that I'm wasn't the only kid who made himself a cape out of an old towel and wondered why he couldn't fly! Superman's day job was being a reporter at the Daily Planet newspaper. Whenever the situation requires Superman he'd duck into a nearby phone booth, and stripping off his suit and tie he'd reveal the Superman outfit underneath. The comic books never told us why his suits and ties never got stolen!

The photo was taken near the wharf in Provincetown in 1962. The kids were just hanging out. It was a great place to meet chicks!

Now we have cell phones the size of wrist radios, and phone booths are pretty much a thing of the past. Two more childhood heros displaced by modern technology. But we have new ways to meet chicks!

Superman? There Ain't No Place Left To Change!

First they replaced real honest to God phone booths with those weatherproof pay phones on a post, and now only the posts and the boxes that once contained the phones are left. I guess they'll soon be gone too. At least with the booths you had a bit of privacy and didn't have to stand out in the rain. Mild mannered Clark Kent, the reporter from the Daily Planet, appreciated the privacy when he changed into his Superman costume. There always seemed to be a phone booth handy when a bank was being robbed or a crazed killer was on the loose. I always wondered why nobody ever stole his suit and tie from the booth while he was off saving a damsel in distress.

Back in the 1950's who could ever have imagined that the legend of the Man of Steel would be done in by tiny little cell phones. My phone weighs less than the mess of quarters I used to carry around, and I no longer need my little address book because all the phone numbers are stored in the phone. The pay phone is history.