In 1957, my family moved from one Chicago suburb to another just a short
distance away but with a much smaller population - about 6,000 compared to the
15,000+ where we had lived. Much to the amazement of all of us, it turned out
this town not only had party lines for all of its residential customers, it
also had its very own "Sarah"! Yep, just like in Mayberry, our phones had no
dials; we just picked up the phone and gave the number we wanted to the town
operator. I also remember we were on a 3-party line and my mother commenting
that we were lucky because shortly after we got our assigned phone number the
newer numbers all started getting 4-party lines. Our phone was #3 in the
sequence, so we had to listen for 3 rings to know a call was for us. And,
inevitably, one of us would pick up the phone to make a call and accidentally
get an earful of someone else's conversation. I think we finally got a private
line 2 or 3 years later, which was also when
automated dialing was finally introduced.
This is the same suburb that today has a population of approx. 150,000 and my
memories of those "good ole days" sometimes seem antiquated indeed!
HistoryBuff
----- Original Message -----
From: "Larry Hamrick" <larryhamr...@att.net>
To: <wbmutbb@wbmutbb.com>
Sent: Monday, August 02, 2010 10:38 AM
> Hey, Mayberry friends. While watching "The Rehabilitation of Otis" this
> morning, Otis told Barney they couldn't keep his problem between themselves
> because Barney had a three party phone line. Does anyone else remember these?
> It was common in the 60's and we had a four party line. Each phone number had
> a dedicated no. of rings and I think ours was four short rings. A private
> line was available but it cost much more. Boy, we've come a long way, with
> all our modern electronal marvels today!
>
> Larry in Lincolnton
>
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