We had the phone guy. He used to walk around town with a red plastic rotary phone, and occasionally tell passersby they had a call.

Then cellphones happened, and he just sort of... vanished.

It's been a long time now, of course, but sometimes I still think of him and worry what it must have been like, being sort of outcompeted off his little self assigned ecological niche of sorts what must have felt like overnight. One day you're the phone guy, next day everyone's walking around with a phone on their ear, and you're stuck with your old unplugged red rotary phone. Tragic.