Everybody Does It

We have been watching old episodes of the television series All in the Family. “Everybody Does It,” which first aired on CBS-TV on February 8, 1975, was the 29th episode of the fifth season (the 104th episode in the series). One particular incident in the plot was a great example of something that truly hit home with us but must seem a quite puzzling to younger generations:

 

Questions of honesty and morality come into the Bunker household when Archie borrows some tools from work for a home project. As the family tries to guilt him, their own crimes come to light. Gloria has been taking lipstick samples from the cosmetics counter where she works. Mike has been leaving coded messages in order to avoid accepting collect calls. The only thing Edith can come up with is that she took a bite out of a pretzel behind a vendor's back when she was eight. Archie tries to hide his crime from a co-worker that Edith has invited to dinner but whom he has offended. In the end, Archie finds that karma has come down on him as the plywood that he bought for the project has been stolen off the back porch, and the window breaks when he slams the door.

When we would travel back to college following breaks, we would place collect calls to our parents as a sort of “code” to let them know we had arrived safely. They, of course, would refuse to accept the charges. This way our folks knew we were back on campus without having to pay for that knowledge. In retrospect, I am sure the phone company was on to this but there was really no way they could have stopped it.

In our defense, long distance phone calls were quite expensive back then, particularly during the day.

 

When you made a long distance call, ATT Long Lines billed the time back to the local company who then billed you. In the daytime, businesses were using the long lines, and your usage of long distance was discouraged by higher daytime long distance rates.

 

A little humor cannot hurt during these dark times, right? Enjoy the episode!

https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x5v0y01

Love,

Rebecca