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.

Used to be part of a 9 party line. Prior to that I vaguely remember the folks turning the crank and requesting a connection from the switchboard.

Dad used to lie in bed with his transistor radio resting on his stomach, listening to WCCO and cussing Bob Allison for striking out.

My wife worked as a switchboard operator in Cairo Illinois in the mid-1960's. Lots of party lines, and dial phones were slow getting to that part of the state. The three pay phones in town were also operator-assisted and callers would always claim they didn't have exact change. "Ain't gots no dime- - -only gots a quartuh"- - - - - - "No coin, no call!"
Jerry

Saving green stamps.

Used to wake the mornin before the rooster crowed, searchin for soda bottles

Ration stamps, war bonds, Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy, and the Andrews Sisters.

Phone was #124.

Long ago and far away.

L.W.

I can recall when we had a party line in the 50's although I was so young I wasn't making phone calls to anybody. We did have two TV stations. If you didn't like what was on you could actually walk over to the TV and change the station. Got a third TV station in 1962 and I couldn't believe the luxury of three stations. I can recall going to a local tavern with my dad on a Saturday afternoon so he could have a beer and catch some baseball with friends on what was considered a "big screen" black and white TV. Must have been a whole 21 inch screen up there on a special built wall shelf. That tavern was also the first place I ever saw a color TV...... When they first came out they were super expensive and almost all TV shows were still in black & white anyway. Places like bars bought a lot of the early ones just to attract folks. Just like when the first big screen TV's came out. My dad stopped by the bar on a Sunday night with me just to catch "Bonanza" on TV. It was one of the first shows in color and you could only see it in color on a color TV. I was amazed at seeing color TV, having never, ever, seen such a thing.

Your mention of war bonds rang a bell. I was in 1st grade so must have been 1953. A Soldier came to our class selling War Stamps. I got a 15 cent one. Felt very patriotic.

Our party line ring was 1 long and 1 short. All of us kids would gather at the home of a friend after school to watch cartoons. It was the only tv in the neighborhood. Mom had us licking green stamps until we got sick from the glue. I don't think sponges had evolved yet.

I had a 4 party line.One of the families had three teenagers.Try to get a line on that.They would purposely leave the phone off the hook so we could not use the phone and then they could use it when ever they wanted. This was in 1976

1st color TV in the neighborhood where I grew up in SW PA a neighbor had it. It was a sheet of plastic. Blue on top,green on the bottom and sort of brown in the middle .Out of about 6 houses in the area,they ha d the only TV .We listened to the radio. It was one of those big tall ones.
Everyone had coal furnaces. On winter days ,when you walked outside,you could see this dark gray cloud hanging all along the hill top from the chimneys.Everyone kept a bushel basket full of corn cobs near the furnace to get a fire started

There was an old lady down the street that always listen in. Made my mother mad as hell!

A guy on my girlfriend's party line would bang pot lids together next to his handset while we were talking to each other. I hated that old geezer!
Jerry