Since I was a small child, I have enjoyed movies. I used to go to a lot of them with my parents and, later, my girlfriend (to whom I have now been married for 59 years). We don’t go to the theater much at all anymore, as many of the movies playing don’t sound attractive to us. We do watch a lot of movies on TV though. We enjoy presentations on TCM (Turner Classic Movies), AMC (American Movie Classics), the Sony Movie channel and several others. The other evening, we watched a 1960s romantic comedy that starred Rock Hudson and Doris Day. The title of the movie was “Pillow Talk,” and the main idea was the difficulty these two had sharing a party telephone line. They went through a lot of trials and tribulations but, like many movies in the ’60s, things ended up well and they got married in the end.
Younger readers may be wondering what a party line was. I can assure you it was not a 1-800-talk-to-hot-chicks phone line. It was a single line that served several homes. Each home had its own coded ring. For example, a home’s ring might be one long ring, or it might be a long and a short ring, or perhaps two long rings and a short one. When you heard your coded ring, you picked up and talked just like we do today. If you were a bit nosey and not afraid of anyone, you could pick up the receiver and listen in on the conversation of other persons on the party line. You’re probably saying, “What has this got to do with wells, pumps and water supply?” It’s rather simple: In this day and age of multiple private lines, smartphones, Facebook, Twitter and other electronic features people are used to, they would never, ever in 2018 accept a party line.