Hoosier Memories: Party Lines
Growing up in Indiana, my family lived about 45 miles SW of Indianapolis way out in the country during the 1960's & 70's. We had a black land-line phone like the one pictured. It was a party-line, meaning about a half dozen neighbors shared the same phone line. You could pick up the receiver and hear someone chatting away and, if you did, you just hung up to wait till the line was clear to make your own call. That may have been between 1963 & 1966, because sometime after everyone started having their own private lines. Believe it or not, most everyone had just one phone until the late 60's when it became trendy to have more then one phone, which meant you to have the phone company put in a land-line connection in every room you wanted an additional phone in. Teens started being able to have their own phone in their rooms, if family's could afford it, so they could talk to friends. That lasted thru the 70's. Imagine, back then, if you made an appointment or ...