When I was quite young, my
family had one of the first telephones in our neighourhood. I remember well the
polished oak case fastened to the wall on the lower stair landing. The shiny
receiver hung on the side of the box. I even remembered the number – 105. I was
too little to reach the telephone, but used to listen with fascination when my
mother talked into it. Once she lifted me up to speak to my father, who was
away on business. Magic!
Then I discovered that somewhere inside that wonderful
device lived an amazing person – her name was “Information Please” and there
was nothing that she did not know. My mother could ask her for anybody’s number
and when our clock ran down, Information Please immediately supplied the
correct time.
My first personal experience
with this genie-in-the-receiver came one day while my mother was visiting a
neighbour. Amusing myself at the toolbench in the basement, I whacked my finger
with a hammer. The pain was terrible, but there didn’t seem to be of much use
crying because there was no one home to offer 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 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
fingerrr-” 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 at home
but me,” I blubbered. “Are you bleeding?”. “No”, I replied. “I hit it with the
hammer and it hurts”. “Can you open your icebox?” she asked. I said I could.
“Then chip off a little piece of ice and hold it on your finger. That will stop
the hurt. Be careful when you use the ice pick,” she admonished. “And don’t
cry. You’ll be alright”.
After that, I called
Information Please for everything. I asked for help with my Geography and she
told me where Philadelphia was, and the Orinco–the romantic river I was going
to explore when I grew up. She helped me with my Arithmatic, and she told me
that a pet chipmunk–I had caught him in the park just that day before–would eat
fruits and nuts. And there was the time that Petey, our pet canary, died. I
called Information Please and told her the sad story. She listened, then said
the usual things grown-up say to soothe a child. But I was unconsoled. Why was
it that birds should sing so beautifully and bring joy to whole families, only
to end as a heap of feathers feet up, on the bottom of a cage? She must have
sensed my deep concern, for she quietly said, “Paul, always remember that there
are other worlds to sing in.” Somehow, I felt better.
Another day I was at the
telephone. “Information,” said the now familiar voice. “How do you spell fix?”.
F-I-X.” At that instant my sister, who took unholy joy in scaring me, jumped
off the stairs at me with a banshee shriek-”Yaaaaaaaa!” I fell off the stool,
pulling the receiver out of the box by its roots. We were both
terrified–Information Please was no longer there, and I was not at all sure
that I hadn’t hurt her when I pulled the receiver out. Minutes later, there was
a man on the porch. “I’m a telephone repairman. I was working down the street
and the operator said there might be some trouble at this number.” He reached
for the receiver in my hand. “What happened?” I told him. “Well, we can fix
that in a minute or two.” He opened the telephone box exposing a maze of wires
and coils, and fiddled for a while with the end of the receiver cord, tightened
things with a small screwdriver. He jiggled the hook up and down a few times,
then spoke into the phone. “Hi, this is Pete. Everything’s under control at 105.
The kid’s sister scared him and he pulled the cord out of the box.” He hung up,
smiled, gave me a pat on the head and walked out the door.
All this took place in a
small town in the Pacific Northwest. Then, when I was nine years old, we moved
across he country to Boston-and I missed my mentor accutely. Information Please
belonged in that old wooden box back at home, and I somehow never thought if
trying the tall, skinny new phone that sat on the small table in the hall. Yet,
as I grew into my teens, the memories of those childhood conversation never
really left me; often in moments of doubt and perplexity I would recall the
serene sense of security I had when I know that I could call Information Please
and get the right answer. I appreciated now how very patient, understanding and
kind she was to have wasted her time on a little boy.
A few years later, on my way
back to college, my plane put down in Seattle. I had about half an hour between
plan connections, and I spent 15 minutes or so on the phone with my sister who
lived there now, happily mellowed by marriage and motherhood. Then, really
without thinking what I was doing, I dialed my hometown operator and said,
“Information Please.” Miraculously, I heard again the small, clear voice that I
know so well: "Information." I hadn’t planned this, but I heard myself saying,
“Could you tell me, please, how to spell the word ‘fix’?” There was a long
pause. Then came the softly spoken answer. “I guess,” said Information Please,
“that your finger must have healed by now.” I laughed. “So it’s really still
you. I wonder if you have any idea how much you meant to me during all that
time….” “I wonder,” she replied, “if you know how much you meant to me? I never
had any children, and I used to look forward to your calls. Silly, wasn’t it?”
It didn’t seem silly, but I didn’t say so. Instead I told her how often I had
thought of her over the years, and I asked if I could call her again when I
come back to visit my sister when the semester was over. “Please do. Just ask
for Sally.” “Goodbye Sally.” It sounded strange for Information Please to have
a name. “If I run into any chipmunks, I’ll tell them to eat fruits and nuts.”
“Do that,” she said. “And I expect one of these days you’ll be off for the
Orinoco. Well, good-bye.”
Just three months later, I
was back again at the Seattle airport. A different voice answered,
“Information,” and I asked for Sally. “Are you a friend?” “Yes,” I said. “An
old friend.” “Then I’m sorry to have to tell you. Sally had only been working
part-time in the last few years because she was ill. She died five weeks ago.”
But before I could hung up, she said, “Wait a minute. Did you say your name was
Villard?” “Yes.” “Well, Sally left a message for you. She wrote it down.” “What
was it?” I asked, almost knowing in advance what it would be. "Here it is, I’ll
read it-’Tell him I still say there are other worlds to sing in. He’ll know
what I mean'".
I thanked her and hung up. I did know what Sally meant.
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True story written by Paul Villard
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True story written by Paul Villard
