People have the darndest collections. Rod McMillen has a collection of old wood yard sticks. You might wonder why the heck anyone would collect them. Well Rod is interested in the phone numbers on them, you see, he retired from Old Ma Bell and the yard sticks have business advertisements imprinted on them.
  Do you remember when you would dial HI3-???? to call Lakeside?
    BR- (Browning) for Linda Vista
    HI-(Hickory) for Lakeside and El Cajon
    BE- (Belmont) for downtown San Diego
    AC (Academy) for Point Loma
    JU (Juniper) for the college area
    HU (Hudson) for the beach area
    CO (Congress) for East San Diego
    AT (Atwater) for North Park
  You could tell what part of town a person lived in just by their prefix and none of them were long distance calls. We didn't even have a thing called area codes. Then in the early 1960's along came area codes we became the 714 area. Later everyone got all riled up when they changed us to the 619 area code number.
  Here are Rod's yard sticks which have business advertisements printed on them -- some phone numbers with only four digits.
-Dryers Standard Furniture Co., phone F 1261; 2368 Kettner at Kalmia
-San Diego Hardware, "Established 1892" phone F 1261
-Ed Taylor Chevrolet, Downtown 16th and Broadway
-Ginns General Paint, 8217 La Mesa Blvd.  HO-9-1211
-Kelsler Chevrolet, Vale Oregon, "44 years in the same location
-Burnette Furniture Co., University and Seventh Ave. San Diego  phone J-4181
-Coast Equipment Co., San Diego Marine and Industrial Coatings Triple "C" products
-Woodward Lumber Co.  No. Magnolia Ave., Santee, HI-4-7961 "Your home comes  first"
  Rod's collection also includes an old ice pick imprinted with "Union Ice Co.,  San Diego California tel 467 "Save It with Ice." He remembers the ice man delivering to his Mom's ice box every few days.  Recently there was an article in the Historical News Letter asking for a window sign to tell the ice man how much ice to bring into the house . . . well. Rod has one of those too.
  Rod worked at the phone company equipment office, the little concrete block building with no windows on Woodside Avenue, the only phone number prefix for Lakeside was 443. That little building is now a church. In the early 1970s a new central office was built on Lakeview Road.  It has since been enlarged and is getting ready to grow again into a two story building.  Our prefixes include 443-561-390 and at least one another new one that I don't even know.
  Rod also remembers being a bill collector for the phone company.  Back in the early 60s a lot of folks in "the back country" didn't have addresses. His instructions to collect a wayward bill might state "look for a red mail box next to

a white fence, 1/2 mile past a brown barn." If something got painted a different color then he would drive around a long time looking for the right turn.
  Also back in the early 60's a new housing development was springing up in the country town of Santee. Carlton Hills was a huge housing project and folks could move in for just a dollar down. When the aircraft industry took a nose dive folks were moving out of those little houses during the middle of the night, Rod's job was to hunt them down and get them to pay up to Old Ma Bell.