I remember as a child we had a party line telephone... no dial, just a crank to get the lady on the switchboard to come on the line and complete the call for us.
The first thing you did was to pick up the phone and listen to see if anyone else in your party was on the line talking.
If there was, you just hung up the phone.
If the line was free, you cranked the phone and the operator came on the line with "How may I direct your call".
