Back then, you weren’t allowed to own your own phones, you had to rent them from the phone company, and they charged you for each line to go with it. In addition, you had to pay extra for colors, or fancy styles.

We had one in the kitchen, one in my parents’ bedroom, and one in the family room down stairs. So my Dad, who wouldn’t spring for a color TV, already had to pay for THREE phones, and THREE lines, so he wasn’t paying for any upgrades like color. We had three black, Bakelite, rotary dial phones. He wouldn’t even spring for the touch tone phones, when they came along.

And we could forget about having a line in our bedrooms. When I got old enough, I used my own money to buy a super-long cord that could stretch from the kitchen to my bedroom.