Telephones And Party Lines

If you are a 70 something woman or man for that matter you will probably remember the time of the party line.  This meant you were sharing your line with up to 6 oher households.  I must have been close to 10 years old when we got our first telephone in the house.  I was familiar with telephones, well kind of.  I knew Drs. and police and rich people had them and that was about all I knew about them.  I kind of thought that probably people who lived in cities had them, but I wasn't sure, as I didn't really know any people who lived in cities.  As a small child I always remember us living in old farm houses with long laneways, the kind of places with fields surrounding us.  Also the kind of place that you could cry or scream and nobody would ever hear you.  Lonely scary places.  Strange I live in exactly that kind of location today and for the past 4 years and it is wonderful.  It is filled with warmth, comfort and love, the same yet totally different.

Anyway, back to our first telephone;  it was black, there were no other colour telephones at that time, at least I never saw one.  Our phone number was Victory 6024.  I never understood the Victory part and don't remember what numbers we used before the 6024.  At that time if you were calling anyone in the area you just used the last 4 numbers.  Our ring was one long and two short.  If any one of the six other households got a phone call you knew about it because it rang at your house too. Sometimes it would ring two longs or one long and and one short.  I can't remember all of the combinations of rings for the six households.

I do remember sometimes picking up the phone and hearing other people talk.  Sometimes I recognized the voices but most times I didn't.  As a child I took words very literally, I think all young children do, so the term "party line" was confusing to me.  I knew about Birthday parties, Card parties etc I even remember being invited and going to Birthday Party, but what did a Party line have to do with  a Party?  Was all six households supposed to get the line and have a party over the telephone?  What a strange child I must have been.  I never asked these questions, I knew better, I just carried these questions inside my young head.

Afternoon Thoughts

Wednesday, February 1st, 2012.............4:30p.m.