4 PARTY LINE

I was talking to a younger relative the other day and mentioned a disease I knew nothing about. He reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone, Googled the disease and gave me the answer. Now I too have a cell phone but the only thing it does is call or receives phone messages. Before the days of instant communication in your pocket there was a landline phone in everyone’s home.

After WW II my father applied to AT&T for a phone. It took several months but the phone was eventually installed. Imagine you could pick up the phone and actually talk to someone somewhere else. If you went outside of your area you had to go through a Long Distance Operator and pray you wouldn’t be disconnected before you reached them.

Now the telephone man said we were to listen to the rings before picking up since we would be sharing the line with 3 other parties. Our ring was one short, one long, one short and one long. Any other rings belonged to the other 3 parties. Now as a 10 year old the temptation was too great. I learned if you gently picked up the receiver and covered the mouth piece with your hand you could listen in on private conversations.

 I am sure that if I applied to the National Security Agency I would be a shoo in with all of my prior experience spying on other peoples conversations.