Chapter 14 The Party Line

The telephone of my childhood years was really quite a marvelous invention.  It was only a bit over 50 years old in my day and most of my kind of people were utterly amazed to think that a voice could travel in(?) over(?) through(?) a wire for so many miles.
            
The telephone of the thirties and early forties was a brown, varnished, rectangular box attached to the wall with the longer dimension in the vertical position.  On the left hand side a black receiver hung on a two-pronged device which acted as an on-off switch:  "Off" when the receiver was hanging; "on" when the receiver was taken off.  On the front were two bells resembling a pair of all-observant eyes, and, just below them, a mouthpiece protruding like a horn.  On the right hand side of the box was a small crank-like handle by which we could "ring" other people or get in contact with "central."  Central was a telephone operator in town who made all the connections at a switchboard.  Central was always--I mean, always--a female.  Clearly, this was a woman's job.
            
Operator in Richardson Texas
For most calls we would first have to get in contact with central.  To do so, we would crank the handle briefly producing one short ring and she would respond with "Number, please".  After telling her the number she would connect our line to the line of the other party and ring the phone of that party.
             
People in the rural areas, and possibly also in the towns, were on party lines, meaning that several homes would be connected to the same phone line on which the signals would be transmitted.  There were at least 12 homes connected to our party line.  Each home had a different ring signal to identify who should answer the phone which would ring in all the homes at the same time.  Our signal was 2 longs, meaning the phone would ring two long rings.  Others would have a short and a long; or a long and a short; or a long, short, long; or two shorts and a long, etc.  Five longs was a signal from central meaning that everyone on the party line should pick up their phones and listen.  Five longs usually consisted of important announcements made by the town, or perhaps by some business in town announcing a sale or some other event that everyone should know about.  If schools were to be closed for a blizzard this would be announced with the five longs followed by the message.
            
If you and the party you wished to call were on the same line you could ring the person directly by cranking the handle the appropriate lengths and times to send that signal over the line.  Now, of course, since all these homes were on the same line, any person could listen in to the calls directed to any other home.  We always knew that a short-long-short was the Ed Johnsons, and two longs and a short was the Thoresons, etc.  And, since the parties talking had no way of knowing who was listening, it was an accepted practice to listen in and get filled in on the latest gossip occurring in the neighborhood.  Now, I say it was an "accepted practice."  That doesn't mean it was totally polite to do so, but the clicks being heard from receivers being lifted to listen in were so common that everyone really expected to have other listeners.  If one wished to pass on something very confidential on the phone, one would have to listen to the number of clicks being heard.  This would indicate how many people were listening.  Then, by commencing to talk at length about trivial matters, the receivers would often go back on their hooks producing similar clicks.  When the clicks from the "hang-ups" equaled the number which were heard at the beginning of the call, one could usually count on privacy.  The certainty of this privacy, how- ever, was never absolute.  It was always possible that two listeners had picked up their receivers at exactly the same time producing what would sound like only one click instead of two.  So, really confidential information was best kept for other than telephone communication.
            
There would be times when the party line would be tied up so long by loquacious persons (usually female) that the only hope of ever getting a call placed was to interrupt the conversation with a polite: "Would you mind letting me have the line for a while?  I have a very important call to make."  Invariably the conversants would hang up.  But, you had better be sure to demonstrate that your call was important for their curiosity would guarantee that they would listen in to see.  There would also be times when the number of listeners on one call would become so excessive that the phone signal would become weak and the caller would have to request that people hang up so the conversation could be understood.
            
On occasions when there was a serious illness in a home or another unusual event, more receivers than usual would be lifted.  I remember one occasion when Duane, the 17 year-old son of Ed and Sylvia Johnson, was seriously ill.  My mother listened in to a call to the Johnsons to find out how Duane was progressing.  It was a call from old Doctor Judd suggesting that they apply a hot water bottle to his hurting abdomen.  Ma had just heard recently that you should apply cold and not hot to an appendix problem, which this apparently--or at least, possibly--was.  That put Ma in a real dilemma:  Should she call Mrs. Johnson and tell her that that was the wrong advice?  Her dilemma was not that this would reveal that she had been listening in.  That could be understood and easily forgiven, especially when it indicated concern for a sick son.  The problem was:  Who was she to dispute their old physician, someone in his seventies, and a fellow member of their Methodist Church?  Now it so happened that my parents, and Ma especially, had no respect for the medical wisdom of old Dr. Judd who had lost touch with the latest in medical science and who had allegedly buried many of his mistakes.  Shouldn't one remain silent rather than dispute the advice of a licensed physician?  But, on the other hand, what if she did apply the hot water bottle and something disastrous happened?
            
If I remember, conscience won out with my mother and she did call Sylvia Johnson shortly thereafter and suggested that the wisdom of applying the hot water bottle was questionable in this situation.  I don't know how Ma's advice was received, or whether it was followed.  I do know Duane died a short time later, a consequence, however, more of his deficient production of white blood cells than of the hot or cold applications to his abdominal regions.  Duane was a classmate of brother Harold.  His death was quite a blow to the Johnson family which knew him as their only child.
           
Modern communication has come a long way since the telephones of the thirties, and much of that distance, to be sure, has been progress.  Privacy, a newly-discovered constitutional right, can now be reasonably assured in telephone conversations.  But with that advance, something has also been seriously wounded: the party line and the accompanying sense of community which it fostered.  And one may question whether the victory for privacy outweighs the loss suffered for community.


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