Anyone remember the telephones where you spoke into the "fixed" mouth piece and lifted the ear piece? My Grandmother had one and it was always a great treat to use the telephone at her house. If we wanted to call someone, we either needed to know their "ring" <as in two shorts and a long> or their name...so we could ask the operator to ring them for us.

When the phone would ring, it would ring at *everyone's* house on the line. Everyone would rush to the phone to see who was calling "Esther" and why. If the news was especially wonderful, people would chime in with congratulations. If the news was bad, people would immediately start preparing food.

It's only been about 7 years ago that Aunt Esther got a private line telephone. The year after her private line went in the folks upriver from her got electricity. Those were two years to remember!

Sandra, wasn't that the old fashioned party line where you couldn't use the phone is someone else on the party line was using the telephone in their home, and everyone could listen in on everyone elses calls. Wow, have we come a long way baby...

I remember in Maryland in the 1950's here we had a party line in Govans . We had only on black dial up phone in the dining room and had a party line that mother would get on the phone and tell the gal to get off that she wanted to use the line . That was so funny . They my father got made when the neighbors phone line was over his porch in the back of the house and he had the line moved over to his side and my parents had a fit. I thought it was funny we had plent of room on our side of the house . I think they all go over it somewhere down the line. Ha!

Those were the good old days.

Nancy from Maryland

We still had a party line in the sixties.

Once a friend of Daddy's got his phone cut off because one of the ladies on the party line reported him to the phone company for using profanity.
He was furious. He came to talk to my Daddy about it. He said, "I don't know what in the h---they are talking about. S--t, I ain't never used no g-- da--ed pofanity."
I don't think he knew what profanity was. We laughed about that for a long time.
smile

We also had a party line. Can you imagine having one today. People would probably sue one another for eaves dropping.

I remember having one black wall phone in the kitchen with a cord that stretched from here to China. As a teen I sat on the basement steps for many hours with the cord stretched across the kitchen. I'm one of five children so we were always stepping over the phone cord while passing through the kitchen. Those were the good old days

In some ways this site returns us to the days of party lines. Just like in those days women listen to each other and help out with advice and prayer when we can.

We've come a long way baby! Maybe so far that we're now circling back.
smile

When it comes to simple times in the neighborhood...I wish we'd circle back. I grew up in a neighborhood where the kids played outside and were in and out of one another's homes all day and night.

Party lines. Boy those were the days. I remember phone calls for one person would turn into gab fests of my mom, aunt, neighbor and whoever else lifted the receiver to find out who was talking.

I remember being told to never talk about anything that you wouldn't want the neighbors to know. Wow, how that could turn around and bite you in the behind if you weren't careful.

It was hard to get used to our first private line - for about a minute!!

I always felt sorry for the people who had to share with my family. There were seven of us. I don't think we had a party line for long. I'm just now figuring out why. The other people probably complained.

Remember Pillow Talk? The Princess phones?
Louisa