Neighbors often let other neighbors use their phone for emergency calls.
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We moved out here in 1975. Had no idea we still had party lines. Busy-body down at the corner store had one ear to the party line, the other to a scanner. Had to tell her to get off the line in order to make a call.
Got a private line stat.
I believe you intended your post # 1466 to be directed at TruthWillWin.
Ha Ha. I remember party lines too. We free range kids used to get even with nosy pokers by just leaving the phones off the hook. They couldn’t use their phone to call anybody. Eventually they learned a lesson. Same thing worked back then for prank phone calls too.
Even if they hung up, as long as you kept the phone off the hook, the connection wasn’t broken, and they couldn’t make any more calls. They would scream really loud for us to hang up the phone-easy to ignore across the room.