Anybody been on a party line?

Back in the 60’s we had a party line and our number was only 1 digit off from the Ford dealership parts department. We got a lot of calls for them.

When I was growing up we had one with my grandparents (they lived next door). Their ring was one, ours was two rings.

To dial them we had to dial 8841 then hang up. The phone would ring their ring and we would know they had picked it up when it stopped ringing. To call us they dialed 8843 then hung up.

It was just silence from the handset if the person who dialed didn't pick up again.

It was common to pick up the phone and someone in either house being on the line.

Right as I got to my teen years I learned I could dial 8843 to make our phone ring our number. If I came in after curfew and my parents were asleep I would put on my PJs, mess up my hair then dial 8843 and hang up to make it ring until one of my parents woke up to answer it. I would then go to their room acting like I too had been woken up by the ringing. They would groggily say "must have been a wrong number" then ask what time I got in, I would lie and say it was right before curfew, then they would tell me to go back to bed.

By the time they woke up, they had processed it as a given that I had come in on time.

We had one when I was a young kid in the 70s. You’d pick up the phone and there would be Estelle Vines from up the road talking to Flossy Payne about how the dye job in Mildred Dillashaw’s beehive hairdo looked terrible at church last Sunday.

Growing up in the 1980s we didn’t have one and I think that’s a good thing. I would had got in more trouble on the phone than I already did.

I was fascinated with the phone growing up, doing everything from running up a bill talking to Santa Claus to calling dating lines and escort services. Calling random 800 numbers, radio stations, the White House, fbi, to all the weird numbers in the back of magazines.

I got my arse beat a bunch of times after call backs and the telephone bill.

I remember my great-aunt was on a party line as late as the 1980's. She was the only person I knew who was on one. She also still used one those 1940's phones that was like lifting a weight.

One of the so-called luxuries we had was a private line to the house but one of my aunts had a party line and it was with a neighbor across the street.

It was almost impossible to get in touch with her since her neighbor had 3 teenage girls and they were constantly on the phone when they were home. Trying to call my aunt after school or on weekends was damn near impossible.

One of the oddities of the old shotgun we lived in was that the electric meter and fuse box was inside the house and we had to let the meter reader come inside to get the reading for the billing.

I eventually bought that house and one of the first things I did was move the meter outside and put in a breaker panel.

My great grandparents had one.

We had one when I was a kid.

Young baws don't even know what a party line was. Has a whole new meaning now. LOL