The party line was a pain in the butt. We had a couple of neighbors who would tie up the line for hours sometimes just chatting.

A neighboring telephone exchange actually had operator assisted local calls. This was in the late 50s - early 60s. I believe we got off the party line sometime mid 60s.

was two short rings. Kids didn't get to use the phone very often and were expected to end their conversations if they heard someone else "click" meaning that they wanted to use the phone. Our prefix was MA(yfair) and our phone # was MA3-3988.

FRontier 6-4163 here.

Our code that it was our turn to use the phone was my Dad putting the receiver down by the running garbage disposer.

Redondo Beach, CA

Manhattan. 6th & Valley.

but I do remember operator assisted long distance. Thus, the end of a certain Pink Floyd song....Hello? Yes, a collect call for Mrs. Floyd from Mister Floyd. Will you accept the charges from United States?

But I wanna go back in time and tell her that there is no number "Oh." It's zero.

"Oh" well.

I was a phone operator for a long time! We were instructed to say “oh” instead of zero. Maybe because it took less time or was better understood? I still to this day struggle with saying “zero” when saying numbers like my phone or credit card number. It can get get a little confusing sometimes! Lol!

When I first learned to type, it didn't matter. We used the lower case L for a 1, also.

My hometown, Henrietta, Texas, was about 2000 people. My brother and I were babysat by 3 teenage girls who lived a few blocks down. When my brother and I wanted to go over to their house he would pick up the phone and say "Pawa" the operator would say "just a minute , Lee" and he would be connected.

I hated it when we moved from that town in 1957.

I remember that in the 70s it was still possible to send a letter to someone there using just their name and the postal zone.

Thanks for the memories.

... and she had saved letters from my grandfather and it addressed with ONLY her name and city, state. No street, no house number, no RR box number, no zip code. (The abbreviation for Florida was "Fla" at the time.)

I don't think she had a party line, but ??? Of course, there were no area codes (used routinely) then. I still love the sound of those old dial phones.

They had two older daughters so myself and sometimes my brother used to listen in on THEM talk to their boyfriends.....Bawhahhahaaaaa....

They'd usually hear the click and say they were on the phone so we needed to get off!! But then we figured out if you unscrew the bottom and take the mic out you could usually listen in and not get caught.

They didn't have enough lines out in the country and had to put some more in.

When I was a teenager I learned that you could dial 144 and another number to get a different ring. As soon as you hung up it would ring. So the repairman could test your line when he put it in.

When I was 15 I had rheumatic fever and was in bed for about 3 months. If I needed something I would dial the number and when the pattern was broken I knew my mom had picked up in the other end of the house. Instant communication.

BRILLIANT!

Millburn (NJ was the town I lived in.

At first we had the party line, shared with one other family. Then, the phone company offered a private line for extra money. The other family bought the private line, so we had the party line to ourselves. That was until party lines were entirely discontinued in our area.

When dial came in, there was an assembly program with a LARGE sample phone on the stage.

If you picked it up, you got an operator. This was in a small town in New York in the '60s. My brother and I gave that phone a very wide berth...