When we had PARTY LINES? As many as 8 people would share a phone line. Very irritating because we had some nosy neighbors (you know who you are! lol) who would listen in on all our phone calls. Never bothered me much because, at 6 years old, my phone conversations consisted of, “Have you seen my cat?”
When it was LONG DISTANCE to call Villa Rica? Some families had a Dallas address but were on the Villa Rica exchange… so it was long distance to call the person across the road! It remained like this until the 1970′s.
Being scared of TRAMPS? Tramps were the original homeless. We kids had heard of them but never saw one. At least not that we knew because they were used by parents and grandparents to keep kids in line (“You better behave! I think there’s a tramp coming!”). So whenever we saw a stranger who looked like us, we never thought THAT person could be a tramp!
I remember once, my cousin, Jeffrey Williams, and I played hooky so we could be at home at Grandmother White’s house together and play all day (circa 1962 when I was about 7). Grandmother had Uncle Winston or SOMEBODY (to this day, I don’t know who it was) dress up like a tramp and when she saw him walking up out of the woods, she shooed us in the house. We ran in the back bedroom and both of us were stretched out on the little bed looking out the window to watch Grandmother shaking her finger, putting her hands on her hips and run the tramp off.
He had fly fishing boots on, rags all over his body and a fly fishing boot over his head so we couldn’t see his face. It was a scary site, and we thought Grandmother was our hero for protecting us the way she was. Soon, she came in the house and said she got rid of him but that he’d be back if we ever played hooky again. We never did.
Chasing fires? Because New Georgia was such a small, close knit community, a house fire set the night skies blazing. Whenever we saw a fire at night, we’d take off and try to find it, and of course, the adults would try and help if there was anything they could do.
One night, we went down a road to get to a house that was ablaze but when we got there, it was already too late and the house was already falling in and totally engulfed in flames. The family had either already gone or didn’t even know it was on fire because no one was there.
We’d passed a car stopped in the road on the way to the house fire, so on the way back, we saw that the door was open, the car light was on, and there was a man sitting in the back sit. Alone. So, Grandmother had Winston stop the car. She rolled down the window and asked him if he needed any help. He was odd looking and out of place in our farming community. He had on a light blue suit and a white hat like he’d wear to the office in those days.
He was just sitting there sort of stunned but told Grandmother he was fine. Grandmother kept trying to get it out of him what was going on because – really now! – it was the weirdest thing.
Picture it: 40 miles from Atlanta in a rural, farming community, a strange car sits in the road with no one in the driver’s seat and only one person in the back seat in a suit and hat out in the middle of nowhere.
But he wouldn’t say much other than he was fine. Everything was fine. No, he didn’t need any help.
I was scared. I scrooched as far down in the seat as I could but he didn’t seem to pose a threat. I remember thinking he may have been a bit two-sheets-in-the-wind, but Grandmother never got him to say enough to know anything about why he was there or what was going on. We finally left him sitting there in the back seat of the car and went home ourselves. I’m sure Grandmother worried about what might have happened: The house going up in flames and a stranger on the road alone with no driver.
Strange….
