INFORMATION PLEASE
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 and 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 in crying because there was no one
home to give 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
in the parlor 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 finger," 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 home but me." I blubbered.
"Are you bleeding?" the voice asked.
"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," said the voice. After that, I called "Information, Please" for
everything. I asked her for help with my geography and she told me where
Philadelphia was. She helped me with my math. She told me my pet chipmunk,
that I had caught in the park just the day before, would eat fruit and
nuts.
Then, there was the time 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 inconsolable.
I asked her, "Why is it that birds should sing so beautifully and bring
joy to all families, only to end up as a heap of feathers 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. 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 table in the hall.
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 west to college, my plane put down in
Seattle. I had about half an hour or so between planes. I spent 15 minutes
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 the small, clear voice I knew so well,
"Information." I hadn't planned this but I heard myself saying, "Could you
please tell me how to spell fix?"
There was a long pause. Then came the soft-spoken answer, "I guess
your finger must have 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," she said. "Just ask for Sally."
Three months later I was back in Seattle. A different voice answered,
"Information."
I asked for Sally. "Are you a friend?" she asked.
"Yes, a very old friend," I answered.
"I'm sorry to have to tell you this," she said. "Sally has been working
part-time the last few years because she was sick. She died five weeks
ago." Before I could hang up she said, "Wait a minute. Did you say your
name was Paul?"
"Yes," I replied. "Well, Sally left a message for you. She wrote it down
in case you called. Let me read it to you."
The note said, "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 knew what Sally
meant.
Never underestimate the impression you may make on others. Whose life
have you touched today?
Unknown
KEEP YOUR DREAM
I have a friend named Monty Roberts who owns a horse ranch
in San Ysidro. He has let me use his house to put on fund-raising
events to raise money for youth at risk programs.
The last time I was there he introduced me by saying, "I
want to tell you why I let Jack use my horse. It all goes back to
a story about a young man who was the son of an itinerant horse
trainer who would go from stable to stable, race track to race
track, farm to farm and ranch to ranch, training horses. As a
result, the boy's high school career was continually interrupted.
When he was a senior, he was asked to write a paper about what he
wanted to be and do when he grew up.
"That night he wrote a seven-page paper describing his goal
of someday owning a horse ranch. He wrote about his dream in
great detail and he even drew a diagram of a 200-acre ranch,
showing the location of all the buildings, the stables and the
track. Then he drew a detailed floor plan for a 4,000-square-foot
house that would sit on a 200-acre dream ranch.
"He put a great deal of his heart into the project and the
next day he handed it in to his teacher. Two days later he
received his paper back. On the front page was a large red F with
a note that read, `See me after class.'
"The boy with the dream went to see the teacher after class
and asked, `Why did I receive an F?'
"The teacher said, `This is an unrealistic dream for a young
boy like you. You have no money. You come from an itinerant
family. You have no resources. Owning a horse ranch requires a
lot of money. You have to buy the land. You have to pay for the
original breeding stock and later you'll have to pay large stud
fees. There's no way you could ever do it.' Then the teacher
added, `If you will rewrite this paper with a more realistic
goal, I will reconsider your grade.'
"The boy went home and thought about it long and hard. He
asked his father what he should do. His father said, `Look, son,
you have to make up your own mind on this. However, I think it is
a very important decision for you.' "Finally, after sitting with it
for a week, the boy turned in the same paper, making no changes at
all.
He stated, “You can keep the F and I'll keep my dream."
Monty then turned to the assembled group and said, "I tell
you this story because you are sitting in my 4,000-square-foot
house in the middle of my 200-acre horse ranch. I still have that
school paper framed over the fireplace." He added, "The best part
of the story is that two summers ago that same schoolteacher
brought 30 kids to camp out on my ranch for a week." When the
teacher was leaving, he said, “Look, Monty, I can tell you this
now. When I was your teacher, I was something of a dream stealer.
During those years I stole a lot of kids' dreams. Fortunately you
had enough gumption not to give up on yours."
"Don't let anyone steal your dreams. Follow your heart, no
matter what."
-Unknown
SO BLIND
It's strange how we boys never noticed how beautiful Gwendola had
become.
She had been a classmate since the first grade, and by the time she
was in high school, she was heart-stopping beautiful, but that was never
commented upon, because it wasn't noticed.
Gwendola was shy.
She rode the bus to school from several miles out in the country where
her father was pastor of a little "holy roller" church, and thus did not
join in the activities of us "townies" who ran together after school and on
Saturdays, playing with our old cars and lying to each other about our
exploits on our dates. She contented herself with playing the accordian in
church sometimes.
Gwendola never had a date. If she attended a school social function
it was with her younger bother. Her shyness kept her from participating in
any of the school's extracirricular activities -- she wasn't in the pep
squad, the girls' chorus, the mixed choir, anything. She simply came to
school on the bus, attended her classes and boarded the bus for home.
She was ignored by the popular girls: Sharon, Eleanor, Marilyn,
Marguarite, Phyllis and Carolyn, the girls who were active socially and
thus considered pretty. The boys ignored her, too. I don't remember a boy
ever speaking to her throughout her entire twelve year school career, and
certainly not Bob Glorfeld, handsome athlete, top student, obviously
destined for greatness and sought after by all the girls.
"Bob told me he liked my dress, today." A girl could live a month on
that.
Bob was a year ahead of Gwendola, and when she became a senior, he was
in the airforce and stationed in Germany. He wrote to Gwendola and asked
her to marry him. I can only imagine how her heart must have jumped when
she received that letter.
Surely it was a mistake! Surely the letter was meant for someone
else! Surely... surely... why they had never even spoken!
When Bob came home on leave he brought her a beautiful engagement
ring, and the first night he was home Gwendola had her first date ever. A
year later they married, and moved into a little house around the corner
from where I lived with my grandparents. Our back yards joined, and on
occasion when I would see Gwendola out hanging clothes on the line, I would
walk over and visit with her. Gwendola had changed.
Now, to go along with that incredible beauty I saw for the first time,
she was bright, ebullient, warm and friendly. Why not? Gwendola was
happy.
I would walk back to the house wondering how we all could have been so
blind? Why didn't we see what Bob saw? How stupid we were! Gwendola was a
prize for any man.
When Bob got out of the service they moved to Southeast Missouri where
Bob got a good job with the telephone company, and they raised two fine
boys. When Gwendola turned forty, she developed cancer and died.
She's buried in the little cemetery south of town where all my folks
are buried.
When I go out there it seems I can hear the strains of her accordian
faintly in the air.
-Joe Edwards
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