Operator, Number Please

Mother and her four noise makers. 1945

If you are new to my blog I suggest you read “A Child of the Greatest Generation” published on 08-20-2009 to better understand why this story was written.

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When I picked up the phone a voice on the other end said, “Operator, Number Please.”

1-8-6-0 I replied. I was 10 years old, calling my dad’s store on his highly prized private line. Our home number was 3-3-7-6-M. The initial following the number meant we had a party line. We shared 3-3-7-6 with an unknown number of unknown people.

It was the 1940s. This was state of the art communications, according to AT&T, then the only telephone company in the country. If I picked up the phone and heard other people talking, it was one of those unknown people sharing 3-3-7-6. I had to wait my turn.

Ma Bell offered a phone in any color you wanted, as long as it was black. I thought we were privileged because we also had a black extension phone upstairs.

About once a month, mother would call her sisters in Pittsburgh and would warn her four sons to be quiet while she used the phone. The long distance connection was not always good, and her boys making a ruckus in the background only added to the problem.

We knew the routine well. Mother would sit at the small telephone desk, located in the downstairs entryway, set her three minute egg timer next to the phone, pick up the receiver and after hearing “Operator, Number Please” she would reply, “Long distance please.” There would be a pause, while the local operator connected mom to the long distance operator. After being greeted with, “Long Distance, Number Please,” she responded, “Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, HAzel 1-2-7-7-1.” In the big cities they not only had five numbers instead of four, but a fancy name in front of them.

As soon as one of her sisters answered, mother turned over the three minute egg timer and began to talk. Before the last grain of sand fell into the bottom of the timer, mother, often in mid sentence, said “good by.” and hung up…and for good reason. If she had gone over three minutes by just a second it would cost her an extra 50¢. A long distance call to Pittsburgh cost 50¢ a minute, and that’s in 1940 dollars!

In 1948 much of that changed. I was in the seventh grade when we had an assembly at Central Junior High. Our guest speaker was Ann Scott from Ma Bell. I was impressed, Ann Scott, who couldn’t have been over 20, was the older sister of one of our Terra Cotta Alley gang, Carol Scott. Ann explained that over the next few months the phone company would be installing dial telephones and illustrated how to use the new phone. There would no longer be that friendly voice saying, “Operator, Number Please” and more private lines would be available.

Like in Pittsburgh, Ann explained, we would have five rather than four numbers and no trailing letter but, unlike Pittsburgh, we didn’t have any fancy name in front of those numbers. Oh yes, mother would have to keep using her egg timer when she called her sisters. Long distance calls continued to cost 50¢ a minute. With no competition, that didn’t change for years.