Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Party Lines, Radio, Getting Snow Swept off.

Return with us now to those thrilling days of yesteryear. Sending in boxtops, Saturday morning radio shows.

All the perks of growing up when we did.

Our ring was a long and two shorts. Number was MI 3 1508. We were told the MI was for the exchange in Mitchell Indiana which seemed a long ways off to us hillbillies in central Pennsylvania. The phone hung on a wall in the living room. Todays youth would be mortified at the lack of and impossibility of privacy.

We were lucky though, for most of the year we only had one other party on the line. Can't remember what their ring was.

My wife's mother taught first grade for twenty years. All those overshoes, and coats, and before Velcro.

Times were hard. I remember when I was a kid, I had to run outside in my underwear to sweep the snow out of the 9footer if I wanted to watch Scooby Doo

Best thing about the good ole days, they’re gone jack

The big dish still stands in the back yard.



Its not hooked up anymore. Not even sure it still works.



Was that C band or something?

Misaligned zippers = coat pulled off over the head, patient work with a pair of pliers.
The abomination of plastic zippers = tedious side-to-side working of the two sides.
Billowy material lining that was always "eaten" by the zipper = careful work to free the zipper without tearing the %#^$ lining.

We had a party line up until ‘79 or ‘80. The teenage girl out the road musta spent hours on there! If I remember right there were 4 houses on there, counting ours.
Two tv channels, channel 6 was NBC out of Johnstown PA and channel 10 was CBS out of Altoona. I remember in school the other kids would talk about Happy Days and Fonzi. I had no clue what they were talking about! Friends of Mom and Dads didn’t get channel 10 at home, so every Friday they came to our house to watch Dallas with my parents.
7mm

Crappy TV with poorly working vertical hold and ghost images from makeshift rabbit ears.

Earliest phone line we had was on an 8-party line... Our number was 884... And snow removal on our driveway was via shovel... Damn - I'm glad THAT part's over..

The power seemed to go out with every good snow storm. The coal stoker furnace kept on heating the house as long as you shoveled the coal in. My mother would get out the Aladdin kerosene lamp.

Yep. The only dishes then were for the table.

The last time we were on a party line, we had a problem with a couple who used to leave their phone off the hook; to what purpose, I don't know. After speaking to them about it produced no results, I cut the line going into the house. The following discussion was brief and emphatic and the problem disappeared.
On another line, a friend called and, when there was no answer, the neighbor picked up and said, "I saw their car leave this morning. Give me your name and I'll have them call when they get back". Different times, for sure. GD

Removed my fair share of inadvertent party lines while working. Most, if not all, were due to incorrect records and sloppy installations of new service. One customer, who added a second line, had an unauthorized person who was using the line for free. When I was fixing the problem, she got on the line and started dropping f-bombs at me. Quickly solved that issue...don't piss off the phone guy who is toting snips.

First phone was a party line, 775J. Later got a private line, 225. Got the private line cause a cousin was president of the local phone company. Nearest TV station was in Texarkana, Ar. KCMC.

Some people left their phone off the hook so the line was available when they wanted to call.

A neighbor had phone numbers written all over the wall near the phone.

We had a party line, it sucked!

I thought that all good politicians followed the party line.

And the old school bus.

We rode bikes to school. There was a bad part through the woods.

Some days there was a hippie-hobo camp
in there. They’d scream and chase us sometimes, hollerin bout I’m gonna kill you little bastards.

It was rare when the baseball game was on TV. Had to sit on the porch to stay cool, and use an AM radio.

I still like listening to the ball game on the radio.