telephone memories

[Bob DeMattia]

> When I was growing up, we had a party line with the neighbors across the
> street.
>
At some point, they decided they could afford a line of their own.  We got
party line
rates with no one else for a short period, then the phone company paired us
with
somebody else in town that we did not know.

In our town, we had OXford-6 and OXford-8, though this had nothing to do
with
the town of Oxford or for that matter, anything to do with anything in the
town of
Milton.

I remember in the mid 1985 living in Hudson, MA.  Touch tone service was
NOT available, but we were still able to dial 5 digits to call other people
in
town.  That switch wasn't replaced until 1999.  They knocked a big hole in
the side of the central office.  It looked like the whole a cartoon
character
makes when he goes through a wall.  In front of the hole, they put a
dumpster
then started throwing equipment into it.  When they were done, they
rebricked
the wall.  I imagine there's a lot of empty space in that building now.

-Bob