I remember when there was one telephone in the house.

[trof]

I wasn't the old candlestick phone, but a modern one with the speaker and receiver in the one hand-piece. It was black and had a dial, of course.

It sat on a special little seat and table combo in the hall.

Our phone number was 71353.
It was a party line that we shared with another subscriber.
Our signal was one long and two short rings.
I think the other party was two longs.
Still, it was fun and a bit daring to pick up on the two longs and eavesdrop.

When my grandmother needed a phone number she'd say to me "Honey, call Central and ask for Vincent's market's phone number."
I didn't know what 'Central' was, but I knew you just dialed 'O' and asked the lady to look up a number.

That's my reminiscence for Christmas eve which has nothing whatsoever to do with Christmas eve.
Merry Christmas.

trof

[doc03]

1. I am really old I pre-date the dial phone. I think there were 8

people on our party line we had 1 long 1 short. The operator knew everyone's business.

[trof]

2. Mayberry

[doc03]

14. I remember visiting a relative somewhere in West Virginia. They had what they called the farmers

line with a crank phone, the wires were strung on the fence posts from one farm to the other.

[Arkansas Granny]

7. When we got a phone it was an 8 party line. Our ring was one long ring.

We only heard the ring of our party opposite, which was two short rings. Since we visited back and forth with that family, we could still answer our calls even if we weren't home.

[lapfog_1]

26. Melrose - 2786

yup - i'm that old

[doc03]

43. Melrose was the exchange for Martins Ferry, Ohio where I went to

High School? Later became (633).

[Ferrets are Cool]

3. Our party line had 7 families on it.

It would be so hard to go back and live 50 years ago. But....I WOULD DAMN WELL DO IT IF I COULD FIX SOME OF THE MISTAKES I MADE.

[tblue37]

4. Ours was also a party line. Remember when reception was so lousy for long distance calls

that everyone had to be super quiet and not make any noise in the house?

[trof]

5. Oh yeah. A long distance call was a BIG DEAL!

Sue! It's LONG DISTANCE! FOR YOU!

And the ways we scammed it.
To let my mother know I'd safely arrived in another city I'd place a call to 'Carl' at our number.
Mom would answer and say "There's no Carl at this number.", but now she knew I'd arrived safe and sound. No charge.
I think the operators may have been on to this scam.

[NanceGreggs]

9. In my family, it was two rings.

When you arrived somewhere safely, you'd call home, let it ring twice, and then hang up. Of course, this meant that if someone in the household was traveling, you weren't allowed to answer the phone until it had rung three times.

My mother was still insistent that I do this after I moved to Toronto, and she was still in NY. Her last words to me, every time she dropped me at the airport, were: "Two rings."

I had mentioned this to a friend many years ago. He later moved from Toronto to Vancouver, and I wished him a safe journey, as he was driving across the country. A few days after he left, I got an email from him. All it said was: Two rings.

[trof]

20. Great story.

[Lithos]

35. Cool story!

[tblue37]

42. We did the 2 rings, too. nt

[MyOwnPeace]

10. Hi, Carl!

I used to call "collect" to home, asking for ME. Mom or Dad would answer and say that I wasn't there. I would then say that I would call at 7:00 - and the folks would know that I would be getting back into town and home at 7:00!
Yoy, the stuff we did to survive in college!

[northoftheborder]

18. My boy friend and I did that same sort of thing too with arranging dates by coded messages.

He was out of town for the summer, and long distance was expensive.

[Alliepoo]

15. Yeah-the operators were definitely on to that scam! Lol!

I was a local, long distance and international operator for good ole Ma Bell for quite a few years. Directory assistance, too. It was a fun, crazy job.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

25. Trust me, the operators were on to you.

But we couldn't challenge you on that scam.

I was a long distance operator back in the day, and we always recognized that scam. We hated it, but had no way to stop it.

[lapfog_1]

28. I called my high school FES

after she returned to her home in Norway.

My parents wanted to kill me.

[NBachers]

37. What does FES mean?

[lapfog_1]

39. Foreign Exchange Student

i.e. how they named the character in "That 70s Show".

[Zoonart]

33. We had a party line too

The phone was on a table with a short bench in the hallway. We were to pass on messages as kids, and not engage in lengthy conversation.

Finally got a "princess" phone in my room at age 16. It was a BIG deal.

[akraven]

6. 21987!

Old # Merritt Island, Florida.

[enough]

8. Yes, one phone in the house, three families on the party line. NT

[marked50]

11. Our phone number began with 2 letters

like Ni8-4776-referred to as "Niagara". Also Long distance calls were made at my fathers place of employment on the weekends over the "watts" line.

[lillypaddle]

24. Yep

my number was JA (jackson) whatever. Geez, it really doesn't seem that long ago. Now I'm made fun of for having a flip phone.

[KT2000]

12. we had this one

before an upgrade. I can't imagine how they ended up with this one because we moved into the house in 1952. The handset was really heavy too.

[blaze]

21. We had that phone too!

From 54 to 64.

[brush]

32. Oh, yeah, you could drop those suckers on the floor and not break them.

[Sneederbunk]

13. I remember making a long distance call way back.

You would give Central the LD number and hang up. After multiple connections, Central would call you back so you could speak to whom you were calling.

[Ohiogal]

16. I still remember our old phone #

FRanklin 4-9383

My hubby's started with RIverside

[Laurian]

17. MAyflower 3-5649. Southern Ohio

That number rolls right off my tongue. Isn’t it amazing that we remember these numbers we haven’t used for at least half a century?

[3Hotdogs]

19. When I was a 'ute, we had the candle stick. Around 1952, dial phones came in. I was in 7th grade.

We had an assembly program where the prop was a large phone -- several feet across. Guy from Bell Tel was on stage showing how the dial would spin and how to make a call.

===========

Fast forward, 1964, New York World's Fair.

My uncle was living in California, seeking his fortune. Bell Tell set up a demonstration of the phone of the future, video telephone. The phone line was connected between the fair and Disneyland. Anyone who was on either end could talk to whoever was on the other end - no charge. So we agreed to coordinate on a given Sunday. Probably 20 of us got on the train in N.J., took the train to Hoboken where we got on the ferry and then switched to subway to get to the fairgrounds. We got to SEE and speak with Uncle Bob for about 1/2 hour. The attendant valued the call at about $2K.

Damn. That was some shit and we were proud of ourselves. After that, the next stop was the Lowenbrau pavilion where they served room temperature draft Lowenbrau in large mugs.

========

2nd fast forward, mid 1980's. There was a strike of long distance telephone operators. My friend Ken, was a mid level employee at Bell Labs in Murray Hill, N.J. He, along with many of his colleagues were flown to Tennessee where they were given quick lessons on how to process long distance calls. One of the stories he told about his exploits still strikes me funny today.

Ken: "Long distance, may I help you?"

Patron: "I'd like to place a person to person call to Irk ____, in ____, Wisconsin."

K: "Irk?"

P: "Yes, Irk."

K: "Please spell the first name"

P: "Eric."

K: "Oh, Eric."

P: "Yes, Irk."

=======

K: "I have a person to person call from xxx to Eric ___. Is Eric available?"

Home resident: "From who?"

K: "From Eric."

H.R.: "Who?"

K: "Irk."

H.R.: "Oh, Irk., yeah, he's here."

[dweller]

22. Temple 2

9024 ... the 1st # of my childhood phone, have never forgotten it,

and yet for my present cell#, and one I had for 15yrs previously, can't remember dozens of others I've had thru the years...
the 15 yr # was xxx-3886, and my best friend's was xxx-6883... numerous times I rattled off his # to people asking for mine, he'd get calls for me and said to me
"they must have dialed wrong" and I realized I had probably just spouted #s that sounded right to me...
😜

✌🏼️

[worstexever]

23. We has two when I was growing up. One in the living room and one in my parents' bedroom.

I remember a friend's phone number was Ivanhoe something...

I spent long evening hours in my parents' bedroom listening to the radio and talking on the phone.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

27. I recIg ently read a novel in which people in the 1950s called

long distance rather casually, including calls from England to the United States. I found that aspect of the novel unbelievable and frustrating, because I recall all too well how rarely people called long distance in the 1960s. It was expensive and a huge big deal gto make a long distance call back then. Unfortunately. people born in more recent decades simply don't understand.

[NBachers]

38. I can remember, as kids, gathering around to watch Dad make rare long distance calls.

He used his "official" voice when speaking with the operator.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

29. We had a wall phone in the kitchen and another phone in the parents' bedroom.

The bedroom phone was usually off-limits. But the kitchen phone had a long cord that made it possible for me to have semi-private conversations by crawling into a small broom closet with the handset and pulling the door closed as far as I could. However, if I was yakking too long a parent would pick up the bedroom extension and set it down again with an audible click to let me know my time was up, and I was to get out of the broom closet and hang up the phone. The good ol' days...

[House of Roberts]

30. My earliest recollection of our phone was a party line.

My dad's boss (living across the road from us) shared the line. His teenage daughter stayed on it all the time. We probably got our own line by 1960-61 (I would have been five).

I have just one phone now, but it's a hand me down Iphone.

[applegrove]

31. My grandmother's sister ran the switchboard for her neck of the woods.

It was in her house. It was convenient because my grandmother's husband was the country doctor for miles around. Everyone it seemed played a role in the countryside. Of course she had to stick around to be there to answer it.

[Wellstone ruled]

34. Even more of a hoot was the Phone book at the time.

In my small Village,the folks who did have a phone were listed with their phone numbers. The Stores and Business as the local Doctor on Main Street numbers started with 1 and worked their way up to something like 30. And from there came the House phone numbers. And those were all party lines. Don't recall anyone using a number,two rings on the wall phone and Molly to operator just asked who you wanted and that was it. Still remember my mother Rubber Necking on the phone form time to time. Especially on Tuesday,Wednesday was Ladies Aide day at the Church,all the ladies had to make sure no one brought the same dish for lunch,if you know what I mean.

Do remember Long Distance was a high priced item back in the day. Again,if you worked the Operator,Molly or Maude,you could finagle it for free. First dial phones came in about 1956 and do remember the Rotary phone cost a dollar a month and was supplied by the local Bell Company plus three dollars for the service.

[demosincebirth]

36. Higate 2600

[secondwind]

40. We had a combo table and seat in the hall also, with the phone on top.

I still have a photograph of my smiling mom with her legs crossed and the phone in her ear. One of my favorite pictures of her.

[rurallib]

41. our number was 4491

Something I had to have well memorized before starting school.

My mother had a twin sister in Phoenix, we lived in Iowa. Phone calls were once a month, well scripted and had to be placed after 7PM to get the evening rate.

They would last about 5 minutes with each of the kids getting @ ten seconds to talk to their aunt. Even with all the ways they tried to cut the cost of the call it would still cost about $7, which was a simply huge expense for both families.

By the time I was old enough to know, we had a private line. Some of my friends in the country still had no number, just a ring number and a party line.