Yes. But only for a short time. We had bought a small place on the river and a party line was the cheapest you could get. So you had to check to see if anyone was on the phone before you made a call. It was a little weird.
Yes.
Yes.
Party Line: Moved to a really small town back in about 1993. I didn't have a party line, but a lot of the people there still did and it was definitely weird.
Collect Calls: Used mostly for check-ins. We all had our own codes so we could let parents and grandparents know we'd arrived somewhere or that we were coming without being forced to incur the hateful long distance rates.
"Hi this is a collect call for Robert Doubleday (double meant two or Tuesday)."
I'm sorry, Mr. Doubleday isn't available at the moment but I expect him back laterOkay operator, please tell them we'll call back about 8:30.
BAM--- They knew we'd be there Tuesday about 8:30.
Long Distance: The charges were outrageous. God help you if your girlfriend was gone to Michigan for two weeks and you promised you'd call her every night "after the rates went down." I had a friend who had this weird habit of breaking into houses, calling foreign countries (quadruple long distance!) and leaving the phone off the hook. He never got caught. I was happier just calling local numbers and asking if they had Aunt Jemimah in a 16 oz bottle and then telling them they better let her out before she suffocated. *69 killed that.
Sidebar, your honor?
I found it inconsistent that the only time there was ever anybody else on the party line on Andy Griffith was the time that guy was in a hurry to get his car fixed. The rest of the time they picked up and got connected.