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We didn't get rid of our party line phone until 1990-ish. The CO (Altel nee Allied Telephone) was too cheap to run enough trunk lines to our community of about 250. Private lines were available, but you had to pay an outrageous mileage charge to the next station 17 miles away. Something like $100/mo I think. They didn't play nice with touch tone either.
Rings were done on a frequency-resonant basis. A "regular" phone would ring when the neighbor's phone rang, but the "party line" phone would only vibrate. The ringer would hit the bells when your ringer frequency was sent by the CO.
I've tried the rotary phone trick on a few of my peers that are my age and even they don't get it. They had the same reaction as KX250rider's nephew. I had a very bright 42 year-old attorney say to me once "Explain to me how a record works; I don't get it" when he was playing with my Victrola VV 4-40. I'm not even 40 yet and I felt ancient. Face it we're walking anachronisms....
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