Yeah I always heard that the phone lines carried their own power, and in Florida the phones did keep working when the power went out, but I never knew why.

So the grid was always charging up the lead acid batteries, and the phone lines were always draining them? Or was there some kind of power switching going on where when the grid was available the batteries would just get "topped off" occasionally and were only drained when the power went out?

The phone grid predated the electrical grid. There was no other choice for power.

Actually, there was one. Even earlier phones had their own power. A dry-cell battery in each phone, and every 6 months, the phone company would come around with a cart and replace everyone's battery. Central battery was found to be more convenient, since phone company employees didn't have to go around to everyone's site. Central offices could economize scale and have actual generators feeding rechargeable batteries.

Grid charging batteries, phone draining them as I understand. Of course there were switches all over the us so I can't make blanket claims but from what I hear that was normal.

It's a pretty decent chunk of power down a POTS cable too, as it was designed to ring multiple big chunky metal bells in the days of yore.

I was wiring in a phone extension for my grandma once as a boy and grabbed the live cable instead of the extension and stripped the wire with my teeth (as you do). I've been electrocuted a great number of times by the mains AC, but getting hit by that juicy DC was the best one yet. Jumped me 6ft across the room :D