I miss using the phone book. The old phone book — the kind with the White Pages in the front, the sliver of blue in the middle, and the Yellow Pages in back. It was always a bit of an adventure. But god, do I miss them.
I grew up in Dayton and lived in Indianapolis for a short time. We had decent sized phone books for those cities. That made it all the more fun.
Most of the time, if you were looking for an acquaintance, or trying to call anyone at all — you picked up a phone book. We relied on them because using the telephone was the quickest method of communication back in the Dark Ages.
And if it were Abner Waltowski you were trying to dial, it was a pretty straightforward deal. You flip toward the end of the White Pages and do a little jig of the alphabet in your head (me with the song). LMNOP… QRS…TUV… WX….. Y and Z.
W. Waltowski, right after V and right before X. And you would simply start flipping away, finding the page, running your finger up and down the columns, until finally, you narrowed in on the prey. It was like an expedition. A treasure hunt. To seek and then to find.
But things could get a little Cloak and Dagger if you had to call Bobby Wilson, the nice man you met at the party, who said he paints houses. You discover three Robert Wilsons in the book. And that is where the sleuthing would begin. Depending on the nature of the phone call, it could be just hit-or-miss cold calling. “I’m looking for Bobby Wilson, who paints houses. Is this the right number?”
But then. Sometimes, there was the call and the hang-up. Perhaps if you were phoning a “crush” or someone you admired. Back in those days, you could hang up — and the person on the other end of the line would be none the wiser. Calls were anonymous. They were incognito. They were a surprise for the person on the other end.
When someone answered the phone — “Hello?” — with a question mark at the end? There really WAS a question mark at the end. The receiver didn’t know who was there, and it was a polite way of asking, “Who in the hell is calling me now?” Instead, we all gave just a simple, “Hello?”
No caller IDs flashing on screens with the caller’s photo popping up right away. All of that instant-identification sure takes the mystery, and the fun, out of things. For crying out loud — prank calls are a thing of the past. For years, I used to call one of my sisters and put on some horrible, made-up voice. I’d always tell her some impossible story and string her along. Like I’d say I was calling about the car she had for sale, and repeat her number back to her. I’d convince her that I’d seen the ad, with her number in the Auto Trader. It would go on and on. Finally, I’d laugh and fess up. I can’t do that anymore.
Oh, but back to the phone books.
I didn’t even mention the whole adventure of trying to find goods or services in the Yellow Pages. Whatever you were looking for would always be listed under some obscure heading, that you had to sleuth your way to.
Let’s stick with “House Painting.” Of course, I’d start with the Hs for House. Nope. Then to Ps for Painting. No. Not there either. H again, for Home. Nadda. Dammit. I need someone to paint my house already. R, for Repair. No. No. No. After three or four hours of thumbing through every single yellow page, I would find it tucked somewhere in a heading like Domestic Improvements / House Painters.
I would scream “Damn you Yellow Page People,” slamming the book shut. Only to apologize later, as I would need that good book again.
The old, “Let your fingers do the walking, it’s a snap!”
Now, we just press a button and say, “Siri, I’m hungry for a cheeseburger.” A moment later, she answers, “I’ve found four restaurants near you where cheeseburgers are available. Would you like me to call one?”
Easy-Peasy, just like that. What she doesn’t know if they are open due to the COVID Pandemic; if they can get meat; or if they are using safety precautions.
God, I miss using the old phone books.
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“I wish it need not have happened in my time,” said Frodo.
“So do I,” said Gandalf, “and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring
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“It has been said, ‘time heals all wounds.’ I do not agree. The wounds remain. In time, the mind, protecting its sanity, covers them with scar tissue and the pain lessens. But it is never gone.”
― Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy
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“How did it get so late so soon?”
― Dr. Seuss
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