My Earliest Experience With Phones

I was never on a party line, but my brother was when he moved to rural Missouri - with the inevitable snoopy neighbor who was always listening in on everyone's calls.

My earliest experience with phones, as I've noted before, was voice-activated dialing. I picked up the handset on the dial-less desk set, the operator said, "Number, ple-ase?" and I recited my friend Tom's number because it was easy to remember: "Two Four Six." And it started ringing.

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