Aunty Acid by Ged Backland for March 02, 2022

If you were a teenager speaking with a friend, somebody on the party line would shoo you off.

I bet you couldn’t read GoComics on ’em either!

And we ran like hell to answer them.

Everything evolves over time, some to the good, some not so good, and below that is most social media.

mhm – tell me about it – can you imagine the thrill???? answering a number you don’t see? we were really into adventures back then!!!!

I still have a phone on the wall.

I also recall that we had a system worked out with some friends sometimes, where one would call, let it ring once or twice, hang up, then the other would phone back if the coast was clear to have a chat.

And I had a stool under said phone so I could sit and talk.. cause it was only an 8nft cord, that was always wound up and tangles. But my phone was yellow!

And 9 out of 10 times it wasn’t a spam call.

I remember party lines.

I have a 3 slot coin phone in a wooden booth with a glass door in my garage and it still works!!!

i had an answering machine and most people would hang up before the beep, thankfully…

I used my answering machine to screen my calls.

Ah, the days before total corruption and greed of mankind.

And regrettably, you couldn’t unplug them because they were hard-wired into the wall, and the property of the phone company. So if you received harassing calls of any sort, all you could do was leave the receiver off the hook . . . and listen to that beep beep beep noise.

When my sister and I were teens we shared the party line with an elderly lady who discussed her soap operas with her friends every day. Someone would almost always have to wait before anyone could make a call. Still, we were all pretty polite about it.

I wish other peoples “smart” phones were smart enough to know they can’t text to a landline because my rarely turned on cell phone number doesn’t get shared with anyone but family.

Made of Bakelite. With a dial.

Well, at least they worked when the electricity went out.

When did long distance direct dialing come into existence?

And you didn’t have to worry about calls to extend your warranty.

I still have a landline phone, but even with the “caller ID” you aren’t sure who is actually calling. If I don’t recognize the name, you better leave a message if it is a real person/business. Not someone claiming to be the IRS or the Police with a warrant.

Weren’t the first telemarketers people selling long distance phone service cheaper? It’s amazing how that has changed. I remember people getting phone bills of over $1000 on their cell phones.

Yes we did all that!

I was my mother’s call display. If her mother was calling, my job was “You take it” screener. She had no time for the way Gram would go on and on. Still, miss Gram.