Telephone Memories

I know everyone has been hanging on the edge of theirs seats waiting for me to share the telephone memories I said I would post about. Ok I know that is not the case, but I am going to share them anyway.

When I was growing up we were on a party line. Many people today have no idea what a party line is/was. What this meant you shared your phone line with other people. So when you picked up the phone you may or may not get a dial tone. You may pick it up and one of the other people who you shared the line with may be on the line, so you would hang the phone up and wait and try again later.

Also when someone called the house you had to listen to how the phone rang before you answered it. From my recollection calls for our house were three short rings. So you could not answer the phone on the first ring. You had to wait and listen to make sure the incoming call was your ring or was it one of the other party line members ring.

If they were not home that would get a little annoying because the phone would just keep ringing. There was no voice mail or answering machines in those days. Also if you answered the phone and it was not meant for you, both parties would have to hang up and the calling party would have to retry their call. If the calling party was calling from a pay phone they would potentially get pissy about it. Because that call just cost them more money.

Our house shared our party line with the Elk Park Inn which was a small roadside bar about a 1/2 mile down the road from the house. So this sometimes could get frustrating, because you would potentially have some drunk that was calling the spouse/significant other explaining why they were not coming home or trying to get back in their good graces before going home.

My Dad’s parents lived just across the yard from us, but they were on a different party line than we were on. There party line was with some other neighbors. You have to understand that my grandmother was confined to a wheel chair and did not leave the house much other than for major holidays or Dr appointments. However this did not keep her from being in the know of what was going on in the Elk Park Valley. She had her sources of information/gossip. One of these sources was the party line.

If she picked up the phone and someone was on it she would not hang up and wait until they got off. What she would do, is she would remove the microphone from the phone and then listen to the other parties conversations. She had a old rotary dial desk type phone and on those phones you could unscrew the bottom section and remove the microphone. That way the people who were on the phone could not hear you breathing or the other potential noises in the room. So sometimes she would get some juicy information by listening in to those conversations. I know not the most moral/ethical thing, but when you can’t do much, you do what you can and she would.

If I remember correctly we finally got a stand alone land line when I was in junior high. Our phone number changed at that time. However I still remember our old party line phone number (723-5223). My folks still have the new number some 40+ years later.

Jennifer always talked about when they only had a wall mounted phone in the kitchen and her Mom would monitor what was going on by listening to the one side she was hearing.

There are several funny stories in the Dysinger about when her folks got a cordless phone and her dad would walk around the neighborhood to test the range one the phone. He would usually call Elaine and Jim’s house for these test much to the chagrin of my niece Martha who was waiting on calls from her friends and Mick was tying up the line with his “Can you hear me Now” test calls.

There is also a funny story of how Mick accidentally re-recorded the voice mail message on their phone. Let’s just say it was not PG rated. However only my sister-in-law Rose and my brother-in-law Mike were the ones that got to hear it. They told Mick about it and he re-recorded it so that it was a G rated message.

So phone service has changed a lot over the years. Not many people still have landline numbers. Most people (including myself) just have cell numbers. Jennifer and I held out for many years. We had a landline until San Antonio and then when we retired we went to just cellular.

Today and tomorrow I am playing in a small private golf tournament that one of my neighbors has organized. Feom my understanding this tournament has been going on for a whole bunch of years. I just got into it via happenstance, but it has been fun so far. I have met some nice folks with interesting backgrounds. One of the guys in my group son, played in the NBA for ten years and actually was on the Miami Heat team that won the NBA championship. His son also won the three point shooting contest at the NBA All-star games a couple of times (Jason Kapono) in the 2000’s

Today my game was feast or famine. I was the only one in my group to birdie any of the holes. I had two. Unfortunately I had more bogies ( a couple of triples and one quad) than pars/birdies, so my score was ugly. However it was fun and we had a beautiful day for it. I will be playing in it again tomorrow.

After we finished playing my neighbor who organized/runs the tournament had a pizza party at his house. It was a fun evening.

Well I better be getting ready for bed so that I am rested for tomorrow. So enough for today.