I've Got Your Number

Note:  The numbers quoted in this blog are no longer in use.  Please don’t try to contact anyone with these numbers.....unless you know the folks who actually have them!

The other night as I was drifting off to sleep I started thinking about the telephone.  Telephone numbers to be exact.  I was trying to remember old telephone numbers of people I don’t call anymore or have moved away.  I was surprised that I indeed could remember some of these. 

What started me thinking about this was that my brother had purchased a phone booth at an auction sale.  I wondered why he felt the need for his own personal phone booth.  Then I said “A-ha!  It’s because you need a place to change into your Superman outfit!”  Nope, that wasn’t it.  To this day, I don’t know why he bought a phone booth.  Go figure!

In kindergarten I learned how to use a phone.  The phone company had brought in phones to teach us how to use them.  They were rotary phones.  Remember those?  We were shown how to dial and then we were told proper etiquette for answering the phone and making conversation.  I remember sitting in the story telling area of the kindergarten classroom carefully dialling my home phone number, making sure that the dial went ALL the way back before attempting another number.

It was probably around that time that I committed my grandparent’s phone number to memory. 763-7070. If I ever needed anything and couldn’t get in touch with my parents I was supposed to phone Grandma and Grandpa Dean.  That is a phone number I will never forget.  Even after Grandpa had passed and Grandma moved into an apartment building, she kept that number.  I think that number is still programmed into my bedroom phone even though Grandma has been gone for 7 years.  763-7070 means comfort.  It means they’ve got your back.  They are there for you.

The next number I learned, besides my parent’s home phone number was my Dad’s work number.  764-4276. He was Pressroom Foreman at the Daily Herald newspaper.  I rarely had to use that phone number, but when I did it was because he was supposed to pick me up from school and was late.  Dad is retired now, but he’s always there at home to rescue me if I need it.  Why, it was just last year he enrolled me in CAA so I would have some place to call if I had car trouble.  And you know that I do have my share of car trouble!  Dad’s rescue service….open 24 hours a day.

There are other numbers which are committed to memory like my brother’s phone number or ex-employer numbers.  But there is one important number that I will never forget.  764-5495. I called this number almost every day or maybe more than once a day when I was a teen.  It was my best friend’s phone number.  She lived only a few blocks from me and we would phone and say “meet ya at the corner!”  We had a good friendship.  Until we had a falling out about 10 years ago.  We live in the same city now but we don’t talk on the phone.  We email, but it’s hard to let bygone’s be bygone’s. 

There is a number which I REALLY should know, but can’t remember.  The last two numbers were 1’s…..I think.  It’s my Hubby’s phone number when we were dating.  He lived in a little bachelor suite.  Maybe I don’t remember the number very well because he was never really one for talking on the phone for a long time.  The phone for him was an instrument to say he was coming over to see me or to ask me out on dates.  We never really gabbed on the phone.

A funny thing about my old phone number from my home town.  764-3770. It was just one number different than Bill’s Taxi.  We used to get people phoning for cabs all the time.  Lot’s in the middle of the night too.  Well, this one time when it was about -30*C someone wanted a cab ride.  So Hubby, being frustrated with it all says to the phone “OK, we’ll be right there…..wait outside.”  Could you imagine?  It wasn’t long after that that the calls stopped.

Now days, phone numbers say so much about us.  Or do they?  I have most of mine programmed into my phone so I don’t really have to know them.  I just have to punch speed dial and off it goes. 

I don’t even have a cell phone.  I know! It’s shocking.  I don’t have the need for one.  I am never far from a phone…..I don’t need to carry one around with me.  People complain these days about not having any privacy and yet they are always a phone call away from everyone.  If I don’t answer my phone, I am not home…..and nopers, there is not another number you can get me at.

What would young people do these days without all this telecommunication stuff?  They don’t need to know how to use rotary phones these days…..everything is just a push button away.  Who needs a phone booth when you have your own personal phone, which not only is a phone, but a camera and a mini computer right in your pocket?!

It was fun thinking about all these numbers that night.  I didn’t get too far because I soon bored myself into dream land.  I think I even had a dream about a rotary phone, but I can’t be sure because in the background a song kept playing over and over and….. 

Jenny Jenny who can I turn to

(867-5309)

For the price of a dime I can always turn to you

(867-5309)