Pay phones are now half a buck to use

Sunday afternoon tennis was played inside again at Fort Snelling. The first outside match is tentatively set for Tuesday when the weather is expected to be very un-Marchlike for an actual March day - maybe into the 70's. Woohoo! My play on the court was better today, aided in part by the fact that I stretched and warmed up ahead of time. The players of geezerhood managed a few very good shots and a few that were perhaps unconscious or more likely lucky. As we left we decided that it's a very good thing that we've been able to play this well and this often into our dotage, and that if we quit we would likely soon thereafter, die.

Anyhow, after tennis and a nice lunch of leftover Papa Murphy's veggie pizza, I decided to see if there was any ice on the lakes in Minneapolis. I have seen Como in St Paul and the ice there is pretty much gone - a little blown to the downwind shore is about all that remains. I decided to circumnavigate Lake Nokomis and see if the water was all liquefied. As the photos demonstrate, there is still ice piled on the shore. There is still ice on the lake surface, too. I guess Nokomis is enough bigger and perhaps deeper than Como to allow it to keep its ice longer.



A closer view of the piles of ice.


I read on the Internet earlier today that almost all of the pay phones in this country have vanished. They were no longer needed because of all the cell phones in the hands of the populace. I went searching to see if I could find a working pay telephone. I found three locations where signs indicated pay phones. The first, at a gas station was missing the phone. The second, at Fort Snelling had a phone, but it was not in working order. This one, the third, was at West Seventh and Snelling Avenue. It actually worked when I dropped a quarter into the slot. As it turns out, pay phone calls are now fifty cents. Who knew?


Time scrams.