PARTY LINES

Cell phoners today pay big bucks every month for their private use of the airwaves. Back in the 1960’s the monthly charge for a landline phone was under $20. Talk was cheap.

And you could make it $2.00 cheaper by having a party line. That was the approximate price of 10 loaves of bread or six gallons of gas in 1960. However, having party line service was like giving wire-tapping priviledges to as many as 20 other party liners. In some rural communities it provided the information we now get from Neighbor News.

When you picked up your phone then to call Aunt Martha or your bookie, you might discover the line was already in use. You could try again later or hang on, waiting quietly for the line to be free and maybe having a pencil and paper handy to take notes. I only interrupted once, to break up a prolonged chat between two teenagers who couldn’t decide which movie to go to that day. “They just gave “Andy Hardy Falls in Love” five stars last night,” I said and hung up.

Some people preferred party lines as a form of entertainment and a way to keep up with local events like getting some background info on the new family down the block. It was the precursor of today’s Neighbor News.

There were legal penaties for not yielding to an emergency call and for faking an emergency call. A Florida gambling conviction was overturned when it was found the police had gathered evidence by listening in on a party line instead of using a court-ordered wire tap. I never heard of a casual snooper being hauled in. That was probably because there were thousands of us. Maybe millions.

There was the story of a phone conversation between a woman and her mother being interrupted by some loud cursing . “My goodness” the mother gasped, ” Was that you swearing, Dear?”

“No mother. That’s Mrs. Busybody’s foul-mouthed parrot. I guess she’s listening in again and forgot to cover the cage.”

“I am not listening in!” Mrs. Busybody shouted, and slammed down the phone.