Letter to the Editor

Thanks for the memories, Bob Mitchell

Sun, 09/11/2016 - 10:45am

Dear Editor:

I thank Robert Mitchell for taking me back once again to the early 1950's at my grandmother's house on Southport Island.  I read with a smile his description of picking up the phone and listening first (presumably to wait for the operator to say "number please," or perhaps more important, to determine if anyone was already talking on a party line. 

My grandmother had a party line. I still remember our number, 289W2, one of five homes on the "W" side of the line.  If I called Sally Wheeler across the cove on our "W" side of the line, 289W5, the operator would ask me to hang up and I could hear her ring Sally five times and five times again to be sure Sally counted the rings correctly.  Then I would pick up the phone and talk with her. There were also five neighbors on the "M" side of the line ...yes, a 10 party line.  When calling my Aunt Marsha across the road, 289M3, the operator and I would go through the same routine, although this time when I put the phone down I would not hear the rings since it was the "M" side of the line. Instead, when I hung up the phone I would repeat to myself, "ring, ring, ring (pause) ring, ring, ring" and then pick up. This system seemed to work well since we did not use the phone casually then as we tend to now.  In addition, long distance was used very sparingly, usually for a short "Happy Holiday" call to distant family.

Oh by the way, I also open doors for women. That's the way I was brought up. However, when starting college in the early    60’s and I stepped aside and opened the student union door for a co-ed, her response was, "I can open my own damn door!" 

I now also open doors for both women and men.  And kids too.

Meredith MacKusick

Southport and Rockville, Maryland