Sometimes one comes across a story that worms its way through the layers of flotsam and jetsam of daily life and fastens onto the part of self where treasures are kept.
This is one of that kind.
As is too often the case, its author is unknown.
But it deserves an audience just the same.
When I was quite young, my father had one of the first telephones in our neighborhood. I remember well 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 anybody’s number as well as the correct time.
My first personal experience with this genie-in-the-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 didn’t seem to be any reason for crying
because there was no one home to give sympathy.
I walked around the house sucking my throbbing finger, finally arriving
at the stairway – and 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 year. “Information
Please” I said into the mouthpiece just above my head.
“Isn’t your mother home?” came the question.
“Nobody’s home but me,” I blubbered.
“Are you bleeding?”
“No,” I replied. “I hit my finger 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 to your finger.”
After that I called Information Please for everything. I asked her for help with geography, and she told me where Philadelphia was. She helped me with my math, and she told me my pet chipmunk I had caught in the park just the 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-ups say to soothe a child. But I was unconsoled. Why is it that birds should sing so beautifully and bring joy to all families, only to end up as a heap of feathers, feet up on the bottom of a cage?
She must have sensed my deep concern, for she said quietly, “Paul, 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 the now familiar voice.
“How do you spell fix?” I asked.
All this took place in a small town in the Pacific Northwest. Then 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 tall, shiny new phone that sat on the hall table.
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 to college, my plane put down in
Seattle. I had about half an hour or so
between planes, and 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 again the small, clear voice I knew so well, “Information.” I hadn’t planned this but I heard myself saying, “Could you tell me please how to spell fix?”
There was a long pause. Then came the soft-spoken answer, “I guess that your finger must’ve healed by now.”
I laughed, “So it’s really still 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. Just ask for Sally.”
Just three months later I was back in Seattle. A different voice answered Information, and I asked for Sally.
“Are you a friend?”
“Yes, a very old friend.”
“Then I’m sorry to have to tell you. Sally has been working part-time the last few years because she was sick. She died five weeks ago.”
But before she could hang up she said, “Wait a minute. Did you say your name was Paul?”
“Yes.”
“Well, Sally left a message for you. She wrote it down. 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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