Larry and a friend acting (or so we would hope) like they are being confronted by the police.

This photo was taken in Lawton, Oklahoma (about 15 miles from Fort Sill), presumably during Larry’s basic training in early 1968. We know this from the phone number from the Radio Cab building in the background.

As many people know, companies frequently use letters in their telephone numbers, now mostly used for 1-800 numbers (COLLECT, SAFE-AUTO, FLOWERS, etc.). Letters, however, used to be used in common numbers.

In the 1920′s, when phone numbers started getting larger, two or three letters were incorporated into the beginning of phone numbers (to replace numbers) to make the numbers easier to remember. The United States used two letters, and the UK used three letters. There were no numbers corresponding to 1 (due to the risk of a false impulse, as phones then used pulses to send out information) and 0 (which was commonly used to dial the operator). For example, if you lived in Cambridge, Massachusetts, your number could be CA1-2345. You would tell people your number was Cambridge-12345, and they would know that you only type in the first two letters of the word.