Phone Lines: 0perator

𝒫𝒽𝑜𝓃𝑒 𝐿𝒾𝓃𝑒𝓈: OPERATOR!                                                       ©KENNETH E. HALL  LONDON    DECEMBER 3, 2017 

"Operator, well could you help me place this call?" -- from the song by Jim Croce

                           ☏ OPERATOR! ☏

"Operator: Get me Alexander 2222!" pleaded a frustrated and befuddled Lou Costello in that 1942 comedy classic "Who Done It?"
In the Sixties, we still had telephone operators for long-distance, but not for making everyday phone calls. We still had exchanges, like ALexander-2222, and payphone calls then cost a dime. Heck, in New Orleans, they only cost a NICKEL!!

It's been a very long while since I dialed "Zero" for an operator, and just as long since I dialed anybody - since rotary phones have been replaced by push-button sets since the later Sixties.

So what of the Operator, who sat behind a switchboard and helped us complete our calls? They are but a memory - a Sixties memory to be sure.
Here is my tribute to them:

ONE thing I remember about the Fifties, and even the Sixties was the telephone operator. Even well after the days of old fashioned switchboard operators completing calls, the more modern telephone operator was still an important, yet never-recognized, part of our lives — at least it was back when.

If you needed help right away, you could always dial "0", and a nasally voice answered immediately "Ah'prader!"

In the 'Sixties, Lilly Tomlin on Laugh-In poked good-natured fun at these ladies-behind-the-scenes, but they put our calls through, and were a human voice behind an otherwise impersonal system.

Nowadays we use the phone so much more than we did back then - like comedian George Carlin once said: "We talk more, but say less."

The late, great Jim Croce sang about the operators of our land as he asked the Operator: "Oh won't you help me place this call?"

How many of us got into a jam, and there was this human voice on the other end, ready to contact the fire department or the police. 

.....And they did all that and more, for just one lousy silver dime!

I haven't "dialed" "0" in so very long.... I wonder what would happen if I did? Would I actually hear someone on the other end, or would I just get treated to a litany of inane generic prompts, recordings, and tinny music?

What my point is, is that along the way through the years, we have lost that HUMAN touch. In our mad rush for instant gratification,  we find that now, the 0perator is by and large  ... extinct. 

I remember those days long ago when there were real people out there, somewhere, on that phone line, and somehow whatever problems or issues I might have had were made a bit less stressful, less sad, less frustrating when I'd hear that voice come through the receiver.

"Thank you for your time, ah, you've been so much more than kind!

And you can keep the dime!" — "Operator" - sung by Jim Croce

https://youtu.be/zaE-sBJQixg

A DOT ON THE HORIZON

A Dot on the Horizon

KENNETH E. HALL     6 November 2017         Houston

It all began in 1959 or 1960. 

I was 8 years old and at recess in Washington, D. C. happily entertaining myself on my favorite swing-set. Deep in thought about whatever, I looked straight ahead at one of the three main buildings that comprised my school.

Then I noticed something visible in the space in between the buildings.

It was a tiny black dot in the sky, close to the horizon. Although nothing to get alarmed about, I took notice of this - whatever-it-was. 

It was just a circus balloon- that's all - I thought. But, hey, you don't see circus balloons every day. Then the shape changed, and the dot was getting progressively bigger.

What the????!!!!

I was now too preoccupied with this Unidentified Flying Object to continue my swinging — or my daytime reverie. I descended from my childhood magic carpet, and beheld the distant odd-shaped ball as it slowly and inexorably approached my school!

I finally identified the approaching object - it was a BLIMP! The instant I figured out what it was, I pointed excitedly to the opening between the two buildings, and repeatedly shouted to all the kids: "The BLIMP!!! THE BLIMP!!!"

The schoolyard eventually quieted down as I shouted out for all to look.

They stopped their playing and looked toward the direction of my attention.

Now that the schoolyard had gotten quiet, only a droning sound was heard, and everyone was transfixed, awaiting whatever was about to appear.

Suddenly, from over the rooftop of the third building loomed a large, silver airship!! 

It was all pandemonium, as the kids of my school shouted and squealed with glee, and we all ran en-masse toward the outdoor basketball court to see this strange and curious craft. It proceeded slowly in the direction of Rock Creek Park, and most of us kids took great delight in running down the open field alongside the blimp that was floating and bobbing along.

We took in every detail, and read the word "Good Year" emblazoned on the silvery side of the envelope.

A girl I knew shouted: "It's the MAYFLOWER!!!" as if the renown sailing ship of old had actually taken flight, and was now plying the blue skies of Washington, D.C. with gossamer sails unfurled!
Many of us ran the length of the school-ground baseball field, following the silver craft  - waving to the crew - or to the ship itself - laughing and enjoying the excitement of seeing something you don't see every day.  

This pleasure, as most tend to be, was ephemeral. The ship slowly floated out of sight in just a few short minutes, and we returned to our playtime activities. Well, most of us did, anyway. I stayed at the field's end - and stood there by myself - my eyes scanned the tree-filled horizon towards Rock Creek Park, in vain hopes this silver-grey airship would return, but it did not.

Then, all to soon, in was time to go back to class. Of course, the subject most spoken about was the interesting type of aircraft we had just seen. We had no internet back then. What we had was encyclopedias and books, and by consulting them, I quickly learned that there once were many airships like the Mayflower - and there were even some very much larger.

Although I recall seeing U.S. Navy blimps while vacationing in Destin, Florida some five years before this day, they had no apparent effect on me then. For most of those kids at my school that day, the passing of the Goodyear blimp Mayflower over our school was but a quickly-fading memory, and for them, life went on as usual. But for me, it was different; something happened that day - something I can't explain.

And that was the very day I began to become interested in Lighter-Than-Air craft.

Funny how a single action, word, or event can have a lifelong effect on you - send you down a path that perhaps you might not have otherwise taken. For me, it has been the "Road Less Traveled," but the journey has not been the least bit less interesting because of it. Sometimes I feel like a Lone Wolf. Then, as I go to greet yet another airship as it arrives at an airport, I see several cars full of people who have to come to stare and to satisfy their curiosity. Like me, they, too, saw a dot on the horizon, and like me, they, too, have taken the "*Road Less Traveled"... and that has made all the difference.

----

[The MAYFLOWER did in fact return a year later, again while at school, and I saw it several more times in New Orleans as well. One day, I even eventually got to ride in a blimp, the AMERICA, but by this time, the MAYFLOWER was no more.]

*
"Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,                                                                                                                               And having perhaps the better claim,                                                                                                                Because it was grassy and wanted wear;                                                                                                                 Though as for that the passing there                                                                                                                                         Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference." — Robert Frost

BACK FROM SPAIN

BACK FROM SPAIN

18 November, 2003 - Houston 

(An email to family and friends in the days before FaceBook.

Hi, everybody

Just to let y'all know we arrived day-before-yesterday safe & sound from

Madrid.

We're still a little jetlagged - and mostly suffering from lack of sleep after that NOISY hotel room in Madrid. HOLY TOLEDO!  And people say that I am talkative! 

Those Spaniards yackedy-yacked till dawn's early light, and really LOUDLY!! 

They must vaccinate folks there with phonograph needles! 

In Spain, the HORN is the most-used piece of equipment on the car - and I am sure nobody dares to venture out into the street without their horn in tip-top-tooting condition.

The police there have sirens on their cars. These they use at night after nine PM, so that everybody in town will notice them. Everybody notices them, all right, but nobody gets out of their way. Hence: MORE HORN TOOTING and siren-wailing.

Police in Madrid do not use their sirens in the day. They are ultra-quiet in daylight hours so as not to disturb the local folks who now are SLEEPING after being out all night cavorting, talking loud, and honking their horns.

The last night there, we saw an altercation that would have gone nicely on the Jerry Springer show: 

A lady evidently was stopped by a security guard at the exit of a clothing store, after the alarm sounded. Now, I am sure everybody has had at least one incident where somehow the salesclerk forgot to remove or demagnetize the anti-theft device. Usually the matter is cleared up within a second, when the receipt for the offending item is produced. In this case, the female security guard began to curse out the customer, who in turn began to curse back, and they raised quite a ruckus! 

I felt like hollering out of my window:"JER-RY! JER-RY! JER-RY!", but I am sure that that action would have not had the desired effect, either on the folks involved in the hollering - or for that matter on Koky, who, by this time, had not slept well for several days, on account of all the horn-honking!

Surprizingly the matter was cleared up, quietly, and the noise level dropped to a din.

In Spain, the folks who work in stores everywhere must eat lemons before going to work. For every friendly or helpful salesclerk there are about 100 rude, dry, or just unfriendly ones just itching to show everybody just how mean & nasty they can get! They come to work dressed up in suits, and they let those suits go to their head.

But I have figured it all out — those poor slobs have to go to work after not getting any sleep because of all the horn-honking, siren-wailing, drunken catterwalling, and hollering and screaming - to say nothing of overtalking. They probably talked so darn much that they's plum tuckered out of talking. 

So no wonder they's so onery.

Leaving the country, we had to pay an airport tax. WHY? Don't know - jest 'cause, that's all. 

Seems to me they'd PAY folks to come into the country to show their sales clearks how to be nice and friendly. Maybe they're just sore that we're leaving, and not taking a few of those sour-pusses with us.

Anyway, despite all that foolishness, we had a great time, spent way more money than we should have, and came back safe and sound. Can't ask for more than that!

Later,

Kenny

BEATLES SONG BOOK

Tuesday, 17 October HOUSTON, TX

One day in, I'd say about Spring of 1965 - the Beatles being in high popularity and I having only recently acquired my first turntable in October of the previous year - decided to buy a Beatles album. By this time, the large store I went to that day stocked not one, but several Fab Four albums from which to choose!

Looking at the songs on the back of the jackets, I recognized a few tunes on each album.

The songs I liked were not all on any one single album, and I had only enough money for one. I could not afford all three or four albums I would need in order to acquire all of those songs.

Enter an album entitled "Beatles Song Book."

To my delight, it had EVERY single Beatles song I knew and liked!! That was it — the purchase made, I headed home the proud owner of my very first BEATLES album!!! 

Here are the songs it perported to have:

From Me To You 2:15

I Saw Her Standing There 2:40

Please Please Me 2:45

P.S. I Love You 2:11

Love Me Do 2:26

I Want To Hold Your Hand 2:24

Can't Buy Me Love 2:16

All My Loving 2:21

A Taste Of Honey 1:56

Do You Want To Know A Secret? 1:58

She Loves You! 2:28

• The very minute I entered the apartment, I rushed to turn on my little record player, and immediately put on the LP.  The familiar notes of "From Me to You" began to play, but not as I recalled them, and not only that, the Beatles did not sing a single note! Not John, not George, nor Paul, nor Ringo - nor anybody else, for that matter.... It was just orchestral music! We called it "elevator music."

Standing there listening to it, I felt like a real "Nowhere Man."

Upset, I picked up the album cover and read it more thoroughly than I had in the store earlier - only to find that, yes, this was the Beatles Songbook, but it was songs - my favorite ones, mind you - played by some orchestra called the Hollyridge Strings!  

The WHO??? The WHAT???

I was a thirteen-year-old punk kid then, and I had just spent about $4.°° of hard-earned money I made from redeeming soda pop bottles for this!! Now I had no money to buy even one of those other records I saw for sale.

Since I liked the songs, I made the best of a bad situation, and listened to the album, and enjoyed it immensely, despite my mistake.

I heard those early Beatles albums at friends' houses, and never managed to acquire a taste for many of the songs of the albums I did not buy that day - and so was happy now that I never bought them! I came to the realization that they were just filler songs.

The day I bought the wrong album turned out to be a lost chance to own a real Beatles album; Throughout my whole life, I never managed to buy a single first-line Beatles LP.  

Not one. 

I eventually bought the blue and red compilations, which by then included all, or most of my expanded list of Beatles favorites. 

I finally got my music!

I finally got my ticket to ride 

- (but she don't care!)

BACK TO SCHOOL!

Summer is gone. 

A walk outside no longer assaults you with a blast of suffocating heat, nor with humidity so thick you could cut it with a knife. The mosquitos are at least manageable. The electric bill will be going down soon - no doubt! The streets are no longer full of children at play, riding bikes up and down the street. 

The calendar says it's still summer, but it isn't really. Children everywhere have gone back to school.

•  Summer was always my favorite time of year! 

I was free to do whatever I wanted - even if that meant spending time alone, high atop a pear tree, swaying with the wind, just enjoying the day.

The Summer days flew by unnoticed, but all too quickly, all blurring into one lazy, never-ending childhood memory.

Then, as the air grew less hot and humid, and the last of the cicadas sang their buzzing songs from up in the trees, I would realize that this summer, too, shall pass, and soon.

If the changing climate was not sufficient to warn the young child that summer days would soon be over, just about everywhere the warning showed up — in writing!

A walk through any store showed signs boldly proclaiming:"BACK TO SCHOOL!!" - as if to shout out loudly to all concerned, that the presence of little ones around the house would no longer be tolerated.

"I know it's time to go back to school," I told my Mom one day as we passed that annoying sign,

"But they don't have to rub it in!"

That's a ten-year-old kid, all right!

School did begin, soon enough, and the pleasure of seeing classmates once again, and the love of learning also began to take hold.

Excitement was in the air and happiness reigned.

Whatever joy and enthusiasm there was on the first day was quickly stifled by the so-called institution of learning that we call "school", all too quickly transforming that love of learning into a chore. Teachers' smiles turned into strict scowls, and homework piled up - rudely intruding into what little free time was left after school was out. Reality had, at last, set in. 

School work was WORK.

I would often spend a minute or two off by myself at recess, enjoying the cool breeze, listening to the mocking birds sing from the crêpe-myrtles —fondly remembering the summer just past, and dreaming of the summer to come.

Then some kid would come up and call me - it was time to play a game or two - and then, sadly, and all too quickly, playtime ended, all became quiet in the schoolyard, and the teachers would call us back to class.

12 Sept., 2017 Houston 11:10am

¡LA CUCARACHA!

8 Sept., 2017

Houston, TX 

I guess it's something innate within us - an instinct, a primeval fear that hearkens back to the time before history, when insects presented a threat to mankind. Nearly all of us have this fear, to one extent or another; some of us just don't want to admit to it.

We call it "arachnophobia" if it involves eight-legged bugs, but whatever we call it, there's something eerie, frightful, or even horrific about arthropods. 

We call them bugs, creepy-crawlies, or whatever you want. They are all around us: they annoy us by day - flying in our faces, they sing around our ears at dusk, and, worst of all, hiding everywhere - they lie in wait until the dark hours of night to come closer —

Late one clear, starlit night, somewhere on the road down around Mérida, in old México, I spent the night at a campground, and was using the shower facility. 

I was alone in the bathhouse, and was nearly finished with my shower when a friggin' HUGE cucucaracha comes sauntering down the water pipe, inside my stall. 

Now I never had a "phobia" of roaches - not exactly - but I did have a strong aversion to anything of any size or shape crawling all over me - be it in the daytime or at night.

I chuckled to see this guy shinnying down that metal tube near me, as pretty as you please, and I, being in the altogether as it were, noticed he was obviously quite unconcerned about my privacy. 

But I was a gentleman about it, and was polite to my little visitor. 

I told him:"Hey, nice of you to join me!"

The giant bug apparently heard me: he then stops, and sticks his head and his neck way out, rotating his head towards me! 

[I've NEVER EVER seen a roach do that before, or since - and I've seen some roaches in my day!]

It was upon seeing this that I got one of those bad feelings - ya know, a creepy kind of sensation that sends shivers up and down your spine? 

It wasn't a matter of modesty; it's just that the damned bug kept ogling me, with its head poked way out and its head swiveling about. It was as if to line up his next move.

"Oh, no you don't! Don't even THINK about it!" I admonished him in a low, forceful tone, wagging a finger at him angrily. I was now convinced my visitor indeed wanted to get up close and personal right then and there in the shower, and I was having none of it!

The very next thing I knew, the buggar opens his wings and FLIES —straight toward me, landing right on my chest!! Ordinarily I don't get squeamish, but between the exorcist-like head rotations and actually seeing a cockroach fly for the very first time in my life, I lost it ---

I freaked out, slapped the offending creature with my sandal, and then stomped on him for good measure! Dr. Albert Schweitzer would not have approved at all.

But Dr. Schweitzer was dead - and the roach, too, was dead as a doornail, but I was still creeped out by what had just transpired. My grandfather used to tell me that roaches could, indeed, fly - they were "just too damned lazy to fly." Yet today I saw one fly! Not only that, but it's as if the roach actually knew what he was doing, and INTENDED to fly toward me — for what purpose, I can't really say. The way he eyed me by turning his head reminded me more of a preying mantis than a roach! Now, in addition to all the other things I went through, all the subconscious images of a hundred silly science fiction movies began playing upon my nerves.

I cautiously eyed the water pipe, and wondered of this guy had any friends he had invited to his shower party. I was apprehensive,mot say the least.

So, to snap myself out of the fear that still pulsed electrically through my body, I began singing:"¡La cucaracha! ¡La cucaracha! ¡Yá no puede caminar!"

It was very à-propos, since the words to that typical Mexican folk song mean: "The cockroach! The cockroach! Now he can't walk anymore...!" The one I stomped on was certainly in no shape to get up and do the Mexican Hat Dance to my singing.

I was never afraid of roaches, but his guy really did a number on me. I grabbed my towel, dried off, got dress, and returned to camp, whistling that same tune. I felt much better, but it was a long time till I could feel comfortable showering late at night in an outdoor shower stall!