Doris Day and Rock Hudson made a few movies together including “Send Me No Flowers” which I had mentioned in my last post and “Pillow Talk” which is the segue into the topic of this post. 20 Things From The 1960s, Kids Today Will Never Understand! #16 mentions the party line which is not something that took place in our home but I did know of neighbors who had party lines. I don’t know why some neighbors had them and some didn’t. “Pillow Talk” gave me the impression that it was more common than not and yet I really didn’t know that many people who had them.
In “Pillow Talk” the solution worked out
by the characters was to make or accept phone calls within a half hour
time. One could take the hour until half
past while the other used the phone half past until the hour. I don’t know that either of our neighbors had
worked out anything. I know my neighbors
from across the street knew who they shared the party line with but the others
did not. They actually did not live that
far apart and Peggy’s boys had paper routes in which their party line would
receive newspapers.
From what I understand Carlton’s (I
don’t remember their actual names) would call to make complaints for whatever
reason and Bird’s line was always busy – it was busy because they shared a
party line. Birds knew that was why the
line was always busy. I don’t know if
Carlton’s ever figured that out.
