Posted on 03/29/2021 11:36:20 AM PDT by OneVike
The days of the old black phone connected to the wall, or sitting on table connected by a cord are almost over. Even if you still have a dial up phone, it's probably working off a main station with a cordless phone. I would guess that 99% of Americans today have cell phones. Those of us old enough to remember those days may be able to relate to this story.
When I was a young boy, my father had one of the first telephones in our neighborhood. I remember the polished, old case fastened to the wall. The shiny receiver hung on the side of the box. I was too little to reach the telephone, but used to listen with fascination when my mother talked to it.
Then I discovered that somewhere inside the wonderful device lived an amazing person. Her name was "Information Please" and there was nothing she did not know. Information Please could supply anyone's number and the correct time.
My personal experience with the genie-in-a-bottle came one day while my mother was visiting a neighbor. Amusing myself at the tool bench in the basement, I whacked my finger with a hammer, the pain was terrible, but there seemed no point in crying because there was no one home to give sympathy. I walked around the house sucking my throbbing finger, finally arriving at the stairway.
The telephone! Quickly, I ran for the footstool in the parlor and dragged it to the landing. Climbing up, I unhooked the receiver in the parlor and held it to my ear. "Information, please," I said into the mouthpiece just above my head.
A click or two and a small clear voice spoke into my ear.
“Information."
"I hurt my finger..." I wailed into the phone, the tears came readily enough now that I had an audience.
"Isn't your mother home?" came the question.
"Nobody's home but me," I blubbered.
"Are you bleeding?" the voice asked.
"No, "I replied. "I hit my finger with the hammer and it hurts." "Can you open the icebox?" she asked.
I said I could.
"Then chip off a little bit of ice and hold it to your finger," said the voice.
After that, I called "Information Please" for everything. I asked her for help with my geography, and she told me where Philadelphia was. She helped me with my math. She told me my pet chipmunk that I had caught in the park just the day before, would eat fruit and nuts.
Then, there was the time Petey, our pet canary, died. I called, "Information Please," and told her the sad story. She listened, and then said things grown-ups say to soothe a child. But I was not consoled. I asked her,
“Why is it that birds should sing so beautifully and bring joy to all families, only to end up as a heap of feathers on the bottom of a cage?" She must have sensed my deep concern, for she said quietly,
“Wayne, always remember that there are other worlds to sing in."
Somehow I felt better.
Another day I was on the telephone,
"Information Please."
"Information," said in the now familiar voice.
"How do I spell fix?" I asked
All this took place in a small town in the Pacific Northwest. When I was nine years old, we moved across the country to Boston . I missed my friend very much.
"Information Please" belonged in that old wooden box back home and I somehow never thought of trying the shiny new phone that sat on the table in the hall. As I grew into my teens, the memories of those childhood conversations never really left me. Often, in moments of doubt and perplexity I would recall the serene sense of security I had then. I appreciated now how patient, understanding, and kind she was to have spent her time on a little boy.
A few years later, on my way west to college, my plane put down in Seattle. I had about a half-hour or so between planes. I spent 15 minutes or so on the phone with my sister, who lived there now. Then without thinking what I was doing, I dialed my hometown operator and said, "Information Please."
Miraculously, I heard the small, clear voice I knew so well.
"Information."
I hadn't planned this, but I heard myself saying, "Could you please tell me how to spell fix?"
There was a long pause. Then came the soft spoken answer, "I guess your finger must have healed by now."
I laughed, "So it's really you," I said. "I wonder if you have any idea how much you meant to me during that time?"
"I wonder," she said, "if you know how much your calls meant to me. I never had any children and I used to look forward to your calls."
I told her how often I had thought of her over the years and I asked if I could call her again when I came back to visit my sister.
"Please do," she said. "Just ask for Sally."
Three months later I was back in Seattle. A different voice answered, "Information." I asked for Sally.
"Are you a friend?" she said.
"Yes, a very old friend," I answered.
"I'm sorry to have to tell you this," She said. "Sally had been working part time the last few years because she was sick. She died five weeks ago."
Before I could hang up, she said, "Wait a minute. Is your name Wayne?"
"Yes." I answered.
Well, Sally left a message for you. She wrote it down in case you called. Let me read it to you. The note said,
“Tell Wayne there are other worlds to sing in. He'll know what I mean."
I thanked her and hung up. I knew what Sally meant.
Never underestimate the impression you may make on others. Whose life have you touched today?
I have a similar memory. I grew up in a house with 8 kids, and I was the youngest. So everyone kept me off the phone. Except one time when I was alone and dialed O. It was 56 years ago, and I was about 8 years old. I remember asking if the lady could tell me where my Dad went. She told me to ask my Mom. I told her she doesn't like him anymore. She asked me his name, and after a moment or so, she told me she didn't find anyone with that name. She then asked me some questions to see if she could help. Eventually I told her that I watched some men in a black care take him away, before we moved, and I haven't seen him since. We did have a short conversation. She was in the middle of explaining how sometimes adults don't get along and one has to leave. About that time my Mom came into the living room. She was upset and told me I was to hang up and stay off the phone. So I was forced to hang up. I had forgotten all about it, until I read this. Amazing story. Oh how I miss live people in this digital World we live in, where all phone menus are automatic recordings. You can never get a live person anymore. Anyone who remembers those old days, will have their own memories I'm sure. A few years late I learned where my father went. It was a of information my mother made sure no one told me. I was like 10 or 11 when I finally learned where he went. I remember sneaking into my oldest brothers room to read his superman comic books. When he came in I hid in the closet. That's when I overheard him and another brother talking about Dad. That was the first time I heard anything from anyone about my father since he left. Turns out he went to prison, and the men in the black vehicle were detectives who came to arrest him. Eventually I learned he had committed incest with my sisters, and was sentence to 14 years. At that age I no idea of what the word meant, and I knew even less about the physical and phycological damage it had done to my sisters. Oh, eventually I would understand, but at 11 I was clueless. Until I read this story, I had all but forgotten about asking the operator for information on my dad. Today I look back and, while I understand their desire to protect me, they actually pushed me away from them. I grew up feeling like an outsider, like there were always things they kept from me. Jokes, stories and just a stand offish attitude towards me that eventually led me to leave when I was 16. To this day I don't have a tepid relationship with my brothers or sisters. | ||
SNL and Miss Ringy-Dingy had a lot to do with changing that.
My two sisters did that for part-time money. Most of the time it was business calls, but on holidays, when people who didn’t usually call long-distance were calling family, they would have a blast.
They would return to the family gathering full of hilarious stories.
“Gimme Tweemont twee-twee-twee-twee-twee.”
Sorry I can’t tell the rest of that joke here.
Is this the party to whom I am speaking? One of the funniest lines ever.
I was the dial O for operator. That was for all long distance, pay phones and emergencies. Oh, and kids.
It was an interesting job, at times fun, at times stressful.
I had a little boy call me once to tell me his grandmother died. He must have been only 3-4. I talked to him while I had a supervisor trace the line and send out the police. Thankfully, it turned out that yes she had died, her funeral was that day and he had been put in the bedroom to take a nap while the adults were in the living room but he just wanted someone to talk to.
I had a businessman call me one time, dead drunk, asking if I could locate his pilot. Since it was a very slow night I did. He sent me a dozen red roses (to my operator number) for which I got in a lot of trouble.
I picked up the pay phones for Agnew State Hospital, a mental hospital and hospital for criminally insane. I used to hate that. A woman there knew if she declared emergency it wouldn’t cost to her place a call so called frequently to be connected with her brother, always declaring emergency.
Interesting job.
flr
You should write an account about that
You were an angel put in place by God to save a life
LOL!............Where my parents lived, there was a small telephone company that had the rights to the whole county. They had one small building, not even as big as a single-wide mobile home, where ONE operator served the entire county. Just like Mayberry, on the Andy Griffith Show, ‘Sarah’ was there for everybody!..................
I'm a James Garner fan, myself. There was also a serious message about alcohol abuse. The soundtrack was so wonderful, as was the cast. I've listened to the soundtrack dozens of times. One of my favorites, from the rather heartbreaking scene when the mother (Ellen Burstyn) shut her patient old husband (James Garner) out of her bedroom:
He was quite a governor. I loved living in Pennsylvania for several decades, even though my roots are southern. My grandmom said we were distantly related to the Pitts and the Potts. (Pittsburgh and Pottstown.)
Verrrrry interrrrrresting. Thanks.
Beautiful touching song.
Alcoholism is a terrible blight. It blinds the alcoholic to the damage they do to those around them, while the one being harmed is always accused by the alcoholic as being the problem.
Love then causes the sober partner to start believing they are not properly handling their drunk spouses problem, so they continually give in. Almost becoming a slave to the alcoholics desires.
The alcoholic then continues down their self destructive path, while the sober one becomes almost self deprecating to the point of hiding the problem form others. Which in time turns to depression, to the point that they lose their own self identity.
Others outside the sphere of knowing the truth, begin wondering what happened to the once happy, outgoing wife/husband married to the alcoholic. Mainly because the sober one has so expertly helped the alcoholic hide their problem from the World. So they never realizing how big of a problem the drinking is, which creates an illusion that the problems of the one who is sober is what drives the other one to drink.
Which is exactly what the alcoholic wants the World to see. Thus so many outside the home never realize how depression brought on by a spouses drinking can destroy the sober partner.
Al-Anon is a great group, but it is more difficult at times for the family of an alcoholic to go to those meetings than it is for an alcoholic to go to Alcohol Anonymous meetings, because the drunk is always creating a situation of fear in the sober one. A fear, not of physical abuse, but a fear of emotional abuse that creates the depression. This, often times, can be more destructive than physical abuse.
Physical injuries can heal complete, but emotional physiological damage can scar for life.
To love one so much that one will abandon their own sanity is hell. Something the alcoholic seldom if ever realizes they have caused.
You would probably also need to clean and lube the dial mechanism (if possible; the more modern AT&T/Western Electric dials are not very repair-able). And you'd want to clean / polish the plastic or bakelite. Maybe replace the handset cord if it's shot (they often are).
If you want to pay for it, you can probably find someone on the net who will do it for you. Or you can do it yourself.
You of course need an analog phone ("landline") connection (cable providers typically sell these to you as part of their package). Note that you'll need a pulse-to-tone adapter to be able to use the dial to place calls; most modern phone HW doesn't understand pulse anymore. I use a pulse-to-tone converter called a "Dialgizmo"; it works fine.
Small phone companies in rural areas used tricky ringers to get phones to work on party lines (so that they could ring just one phone on the line). Those ringers usually won't work on a modern phone system.
Sometimes it's just moving a wire from one terminal to another; sometimes you have to find a plain-jane ("straight-line") replacement ringer.
B4l
I’ve been there. But I did get help and learned how not to be an enabler of the abuser, from Al Anon. It’s a great organization.
Thank you for the information!!
I’ll be going back this week and will grab the phones.
I do have a landline connection so there’s a half-hope they may work.
This is going to be fun!
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