The Party Line, By Gerry Hubbard

Two longs three shorts our crank phone rang when someone called to talk
You could hear that single phone line hum and the hand receiver squawk
We all were on a party line, about ten farms or so
Those darned old phones would barely work in heavy rains or snow

We’d get a call from someone, as we talked of farms and sin
We could hear some other phones click on as neighbors listened in
Patty’s pregnant, Mike left Joan, Frank’s bull just won first prize
Sometimes we heard the neighbors laugh or gasp in stunned surprise

Gladys Mace was “Central” that you rang one long to get
For that small group of neighbors, she was like the Internet
“Three cars drove slow up by Earle’s pond ”, the caller wondered why
“That’s city people hunting deer”, came back her terse reply

“We heard some shots, there’s flashing lights on the hill by Raymond Brown.”
“That’s Sheriff Van Wie and the State Police, they’re hunting Rocco down.”
Four shorts would call Clarence Ellis and Glenny, Doris and Paul
Four longs would get Cook’s General Store, and it wasn’t in a mall

Two longs, one short got Hallecks, and David and Flora Dell
And there wasn’t any limit to the stories folks would tell
Otis shot a rabid fox, our dog fell off the tower
A Marine on leave has hit a tree at ninety miles an hour

Aggie Hubbard slipped and fell, she broke her hip and leg
And where’s the best price you can get to buy or sell some eggs
Chicken pox and whooping cough, young kids were caught with beer
LaVerne has just shot Russell’s goat, he thought it was a deer

Wayne’s in bed, we think it’s flu, he’s got a real bad cough
A Grand Gorge boy’s been torn apart by a tractor power take-off
Gerald was bitten by a cat, he tried to feed it stones
A Gilboa man has shot himself, bereaved and all alone.

Tom Haskins & Pat Russell’s sleigh ride almost got them killed
When they hit the rear of Miller’s car parked there on Haskin Hill
Tommy’s fine with bad scalp cuts and major scrapes and pain
But Patty Russell broke her neck, she’ll never walk again

Mundane, dramatic, birth and death, all stories hit the wires
Love and hate and jealousy and changing tractor tires
Those old phones were our life-line to neighbors, friends and kin
We somehow never seemed to care if others listened in

We stayed connected, talked and laughed, and never realized that
We were there at the beginning of the world’s first “On-Line Chat”

Notes To “The Party Line”

Rocco was the name of a guy from New York City, who wanted to get rid of his wife. In Grand Central Station, he conned a women who was a stranger to him into believing he was an under-cover cop looking for smugglers. He convinced this women that the box-like thing he had was an x-ray camera and he got her to point this device at his wife and click the “shutter”. The shutter was really the triggers of a double-barreled 12 gauge shotgun loaded with No. 2 birdshot. His wife was hit in the legs and crippled but not killed and Rocco soon became the prime suspect

Rocco had been a “boarder” and had hunted on Raymond Browns farm. With the cops after him, he fled from the city to the Brown farm where the police and sheriff found him.

Rocco was in a remote area in a sleeping bag in the snow when the police surrounded him. He was armed with several rifles and pistols. A gun battle ensued and he was shot dead by a state trooper with a rifle but not before he put a bullet through the sleeve of another trooper.

My dad was a deputy sheriff at the time and our whole family loaded into the car and went to the scene just minutes after the battle. All the police were there still standing around, the Browns and many of the neighbors were there.

We were allowed complete access. The trooper showed me the hole through his sleeve and I remember walking up very close to Rocco’s corpse and, surprised at how pale he was, asking my dad why.

“He’s dead,” he said.

And I pondered that for a while, wondering why the other dead people I’d seen at funerals were not pale. I was 7 years old.