Battling the phone company

The wonderful phone system that was available on Green Valley Drive was mentioned by someone earlier. Some families had party lines with multiple households sharing the same line. Each family had different ring tones so you would know whether or not to answer the phone. The phone system was a very old rural phone system that was taken over by Pennsylvania Bell and it was very problem laden. Our family did not have a party line but there were many times that there was no dial tone when you picked up the phone. This happened so frequently that my Dad wrote down the time and kept track of the number of minutes (hours) that there was no dial tone. He would then prorate the bill that he was sent and deduct the amount from the bill. He would then pay the prorated amount which drove the phone company billing folks crazy. They would say pay the full bill and submit the times that the phone was not working and that they would credit the next bill but my Dad continued to do it his way (big surprise there!). He did this so often and called so often to complain that Pennsylvania Bell assigned a person to my father and gave him a direct phone number to this person. His name was of all things, Mr. Joy. Believe me he always got an earful.

It turned out to be a little dangerous at times as well. One of the Ambill kids put his hand through a door and was bleeding but when they picked up the phone to make an emergency call, the line was dead. Fortunately, the Moore’s were their immediate neighbor. Mr. Moore was the water commissioner for the Borough of Fox Chapel and technically was supposed to be living in Fox Chapel. Because of this, the Moore’s had a phone connected into the exchange for Fox Chapel instead of our antiquated system. Their phone always worked.

There were so many complaints by all the families on the street that the repair folks hated coming out. When they did, it was nearly a mod scene as everyone would run to the truck and start talking all at once. So I guess that some things are better now.