I'm with Texas Kid, I wanted to know more about the barbed wire phone system. I'd like to say thankyou SkaBa, that was sure interesting about the telephones. I had a number of relatives and friends that had the crank telephones into the 50's, and when I was a kid we were on a party line, and the phone was on the wall, but no crank. Even after we got a large, heavy black phone that sat on the table we were still on a party line. Pick up the receiver, and a nice lady with a smile in her voice would say, "number please," and if I was calling home I'd say, "649J." Then after we got dial, when you picked up, before you dialed you were supposed to listen before dialing, in case someone else was on the line. In 1971 we moved to rural Oregon, and were once again on a party line, and it was several years before a private line became available, and then you had to pay extra to have one. Then then Ma Bell raised everyone's rates, and a circle that included towns 20 miles away became local calls. Speaking of local calls vs long distance. If I remember right, when the operator asked for number please, if you were calling long distance you had to ask for the long distance operator, and when you finally got the number, you had three minutes and then the cost of the call started going up. I had an Uncle that had an egg timer, and at the end of three minutes, if you were in mid sentence he hung up. If you were calling long distance, but didn't know the number, you could give the operator the name and area, and they would try and find the number for you. I remember calling Reno, NV trying to reach a ranch 60 miles away on the Carson River, and all I had was a name, and the operator was able to find them and make the connection.
The Kid
