Blog: Do You Still Remember Your Telephone Number?

I don't get many calls on my cellphone. My family and friends know that I don't like talking on the phone – but it hasn't always been that way.

My grandmother had a party-line – a phone line shared with another household in town. If the phone was in use by one family, the other household would need to wait their turn. Pick up the receiver while the other family was on the line and you could listen in on their conversation — which I did more than once.

The phone in my childhood home was the standard black Western Electric 500 bakelite model, with the phone number printed on the center of its rotary dial. In the 1950s and 60s, an exchange name represented the first two letters of the phone number.  Ours was BRowning 8-1262.

Most families, back in the day, owned just one phone. We kept ours on a table near the entry to our kitchen. As a teenager I could usually be found by following the phone cord through the kitchen and under the door leading out to the garage.

Seeking privacy from the eavesdropping and teasing of older brothers, I would sit on the garage step with my back leaning against the closed kitchen door and talk for hours with my best friend. Deep conversations ranged from boys, to parties, to what outfits we would be wearing to school the next day. If someone opened the door, I fell backwards onto the kitchen linoleum.

The days of party lines and rotary phones are gone, but I still have that heavy old phone from my childhood. It still works, but don't call me, because I don't like talking on the phone.

If you're interested in the history of the telephone, make it a point to visit the Roseville Telephone Museum, presented by SureWest.