Growing up on our ranch outside Thayne, Wyoming, I assumed every family used the telephone the way we did. It wasn't until years later that I realized many of our experiences were unique to growing up in a small rural community.
Until I was about eight years old, our family shared a party line with some neighbors, including the Larsons who lived on the ranch to the south of us. Instead of every house having its own private telephone line, we shared the same party line. If someone else was already talking, you simply had to wait for them to finish before you could make your own call.
Every family had its own ring pattern. Ours was two short rings. The others each had different patterns, and everyone in the family knew which rings belonged to which neighbor. If the phone rang with two quick rings, whoever reached the phone first would pick up the receiver and answer, "Jaspersons."
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| A green rotary wall phone like the one our family used throughout my childhood |
Our phone was a green rotary wall phone mounted on a very narrow strip of wall in the kitchen, only about eight inches wide, between the doorway leading into the living room and the doorway going down the hall. It had a wonderfully long coiled cord that stretched ten or fifteen feet, allowing whoever was on the phone to wander around the kitchen or even sit on the couch in the living room while they talked.
One of the odd things about living with a party line was that you never knew what you would hear when you picked up the receiver. Before dialing, you always listened for the dial tone. If you heard that familiar humming sound, the line was free. But sometimes, instead of a dial tone, you would hear one of your neighbors already deep in conversation. When that happened, there wasn't much you could do except hang up and try again later.
The Larson family had three teenage daughters, and like most teenagers, they could spend a long time talking on the phone.
One evening, my older sister Kris wanted to call one of her friends. Mom and Dad weren't home, but Kelly, Cade, and I were. Kris picked up the phone and found one of the Larson girls already talking. She hung up and waited a few minutes before trying again.
Still busy.
A few minutes later she checked again.
Still busy.
After several attempts, Kris had reached the end of her patience.
She gathered all of us into the kitchen and announced her plan. We stood in a circle around the phone while she rehearsed us. Then she picked up the receiver, laid the handset on the floor in the middle of our circle, counted us in, and together we all shouted as loudly as we could:
"GET OFF THE PHONE!"
Then she quickly hung up.
If you were talking on a party line, you could hear someone else pick up another extension because it made a distinct clicking sound. If that person made any noise, everyone on the call heard it. I'm quite certain the Larson girls heard four kids yelling at the top of their lungs.
Oddly enough, I don't remember whether Kris's strategy actually worked. I assume she eventually made her phone call, but that's not the part I remember. What I remember is standing in that circle in the kitchen with Kris directing our little protest.
Another memory that has stayed with me happened more than once.
Mom would spend a long time talking with one of her sisters or a close friend. Not long after she hung up, the phone would ring again.
One of our neighbors would be on the line.
"I picked up the phone in the middle of your story about..." they would say. "Would you mind telling me the rest? I missed part of it."
That still makes me smile.
There really wasn't much privacy on a party line. Everyone tried to respect one another, but if you picked up the receiver while someone else was talking, you couldn't help overhearing part of the conversation. In our little rural community, that was simply part of everyday life.
Sometime around 1976 or 1977, the telephone company finally converted our area from party lines to individual telephone service. We even received a new phone number. For years our number had been 883-2191. After the conversion, it became 883-2291.
Looking back, getting our own private telephone line was certainly an improvement. We no longer had to wait for the neighbors to finish talking before making a call, and no one accidentally listened to the middle of our conversations anymore.
But I have to admit, I'm glad I grew up during those years of two short rings. They were just a small part of growing up in rural Wyoming, but they're some of my favorite memories.
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