[Lonesome in Massachussets]

No, I was never on a party line, but I had a friend who was. I still have one of those things in the basement, it worked last time I hooked it up. We didn’t get touch tone phones until some time after 1985, when I got my first 1200 Baud modem. There is still a 50 cent/month surcharge for touchTone in Massachusetts! even though it costs the phone company a whole lot less than rotary dial to implement.

[count-your-change]

I always thought as a kid that being the telephone repairman was a neat job because he had spurs that allowed him to climb poles, how cool would that be!
But then the cable was buried in the ground and the county's backhoe would repeatedly snag a big black rubber covered root and break it while cleaning ditches.
Not so cool then, sitting and splicing dozens of little wires together.