Bank of Holly Springs

Close to Nowhere

Glad to get home phone working once again

My landline has been out of order for nearly two months now. It's been a royal pain, especially since my cell phone won't pick up where we live.

We moved to Mississippi in January 1986 from Memphis, Tenn. Our phone service in Memphis was pretty good. We had all the modern features ­ call waiting was one of my personal favorites.

Imagine my surprise when I talked to the telephone company here and they said there wasn't such a creature as phone service out where we picked to live.

I wasn't surprised that we would have to have electricity run from the highway, because we were putting our house smack in the middle of the woods. But I figured phone would run right in with the electricity.

Wrong!

Eventually I whined and complained enough that the phone company offered me — ­ taa daaaa ­ — one of a four-party line. I was so tired of talking about a phone line with the company that I gladly accepted.

I bet not many people remember party lines. Now, bear in mind this was 1986 and phone service, in most places, was fairly sophisticated.

And yet, every Sunday, I had to beg and beg an elderly woman on the party line to hang up so I could call my brothers and see if they were coming. She never would. I'd have to drive three miles down the road to Keel's Grocery and use the pay phone ­ every Sunday for over a year.

Our neighbors, Johnny and the late Carolyn King, had lived nearby for several years. They still didn't have a phone of any kind. Any day our other neighbor wasn't on the phone, I was happy for Johnny and Carolyn to come use ours. That way I got to see other humans, as this area was even more isolated than it is now.

Carolyn and I either one didn't know how to act when we finally got "real" phones. The only problem was and is the fact that when it rains, my phone goes out. The phone company will come fix it, but sometimes it takes a while to find where it's broken.

I did make the phone repairman happy this last visit. In my bedroom I have a corded phone (so when the power goes out I have phone service ­ sometimes). This particular phone is one I got son Kris eons ago. It's clear plastic so you can see all the innards and it lights up when it rings. The phone guy, after he finally found the latest cause of no phone service, stood in the door of my bedroom and called our number several times so he could watch the phone light up. He said he hadn't seen one like that since he was a teenager.

I was so happy that my phone was ringing again that he could have played with my 1970s era phone a lot longer!

Holly Springs South Reporter

P.O. Box 278
Holly Springs, MS 38635
PH: (662) 252-4261
FAX: (662) 252-3388
www.southreporter.com