A short excerpt from "Party Line"
Quote:
Party Line
I don’t remember ever not having a telephone when I was a kid, but it wasn’t a private line like you probably have. It was a party line shared with several others homes and by party line I don’t mean cookies and cake. Once in a while you’d pick up the phone to make a call and there’d be a conversation already going on, maybe the Shebesters to the north or the Joneses to the south. Human nature being what it is you couldn’t really help but listen in a little bit, rarely if ever was it anything Earth-shattering but it was always a bit of a voyeuristic thrill to hear talk not meant for your ears even if it was just about the weather, crops or family stuff. Living on a farm as we did, the telephone was a necessity and a literal lifeline on a few occasions. Thinking of it that way makes me wonder about earlier generations of farmers and ranchers and how they coped without it. I suppose they had to be even more self-reliant in case of emergencies. It also meant they weren’t bothered by one ring or two rings that were coded designations assigned to the parties on the line. One ring for Shebesters, two rings for Chaffins, a long and a short for Joneses and so on.
From the start it was that phone that fascinated me, spurring my imagination, wondering how it worked and being amazed at the thought that that it could connect me with virtually anyone in the world. It was awe inspiring and a big trigger that set me on the road of science, electronics, asking why and trying to learn everything I could about the world around me and how science was the key to it all. And that to some extent came in direct conflict with the religious and spiritual environment around me.
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U.S. Link:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00GBLRKU0
U.K. Link:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00GBLRKU0