Readers Remember

Our sixth-grade class took a field trip to the Griffith Park Observatory, and there was an exhibit showing how polarizing the windshields and headlights of cars could reduce glare from oncoming cars without hampering vision. That was 60 years ago and we still do not have polarized windshields and headlights.

In a junior high school math class, we studied the metric system because “soon the country would be using it.” That was over 50 years ago.

JUANITA MATASSA

Santa Ana

Oh, dear! The phone was not working. It was the middle of the 1930s.

I was given a dime and told to run to the nearest public phone booth to call the phone company to complain.

Feeling like a grown-up, I entered the phone booth, smartly closing the sliding doors. I looked at the phone. Holy smoke! What was that on the phone? A round dial with holes in it.

What was I to do? How do I work it? Pushing the dial one way did nothing; then it snapped back. Pushing the dime in the slot, I heard only a buzz. No operator.

Did I have to go home and admit I was a dummy? I waved to a man walking by, telling him my predicament. He told me this is a new invention by the telephone company . . . the rotary phone. Nervous as a Nellie, I tried it and, whoops! I heard a voice: the telephone company.

DANUSIA MUIRHEAD

Encino

In 200 words or less, send us your memories, comments or eyewitness accounts of the 20th century. Write to Century, Los Angeles Times, Times Mirror Square, Los Angeles, CA 90053, or e-mail century@latimes.com. Letters may be edited for space.