I'm not sure what method other people were referring to above regarding free calls on a payphone but our method was to place a collect call. You had about 2 seconds to record your name and in that two seconds you would say a la aseres bnei haman "pick-me-up-in-ten-minutes-in-front-of-the-library-please!"
Guy in Yeshivah who just had a newborn baby sister wanted to find out her name. so he made a collect call home from "mah shmo?" Operator comes back to him, "She is not available but Devorah Leah is. Would you like to speak to her?"
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