Evening star., 1946-01-15

cGuQCllU.
I took over control of operations
at 6 pm, when business Stacked off
because everybody was eating sup
per, and I remained in control until
6 am. next morning. Between pm.
and pm. I was kept busy plugging
the calls in and out, those being
the active social hours in our town.
After 9 o'clock business eased up
and I was able to give part of my
time to my school work. At 10
o'clock could go to bed on a cot
in the back room.
A very simple device made this
possible. 1t consisted of a loud
gong to which the incoming calls
were hooked up. That would awaken
the night superintendent and he
would direct the night operator to
make the desired connection When
the call was completed sleep could
be resumed.
Virtually Foolpr0of.
1t was a virtually foolproof sys-
tenn, and I don't believe there were
many omplaintS-during the WIN
ter months - Notwithstanding the
profundity of sleep produced by the
school books. 1t was interesting
work and romantic. Not only did
1t give a man the feeling of being
right In the heart of things, with a
finger on the pulse of the towns
life, but as told the other men at
school, you could have more darn
fun kidding with girls over the
phone.
They'd call you up and say
Guess who this is?" and you'd
say, Mabel" or Mary" or Miriam u
as the case might be, because you
knew who had that number You
never saw the girls; you just knew
them or imagined what they were
like from their voices.
There was a grocery store cashier,
name of Mollie, who seemed to en-
Joy these telephone flirtations i'm.
mensely. She had the loveliest
voice I'd ever heard and in my
mind I conjured up a wholly beauti-
full young person to 60 with it. So
in a burst of devilish daring,
invited her over to the office. She
said she would come If she could
bring her girl friend and I said
sure, she could.
Presently into the Office walked
two buxom middle-aged women
They must have been at least 26
years old. They looked at me and
giggled. I was some time realizing
that it was Mollie of the beautiful
voice and her girl friend. The visit
wasn't exactly success, but we all
three probably learned something
from it: Maybe not to believe every
thing you hear.
Anybody Can Make Mistakes.
Occasionally other things went
wrong, like the time I mixed up the
call of a woman to her dearest
friend and she started spilling the
dirt concerning her other dearest
friend only to discover that some
how had plugged in the latter in
stead of the former. But anybody
can make mistakes.
Then came spring. The nights
were warm and it was necessary to
have the windows open. Apparently
I slept as soundly in the spring as in
the winter and that fire alarm gong
usually had to ring a long time
to awaken me. There were nights
in fact, when 1t succeeded in rous-
ing two-thirds of the town before
1t accomplished its primary pur-
pose.
Indignant citizens took matters
In hand and demanded that the
nuisance be abated. The general
manager and I had a conference
at the end Of which he took de-
cisive action. He abated me. Ir
other words, he changed the entire
night time labor-management setup
What else the telephone company
did, I don't know, but I'm conf.
dent 1t worked the problem out ir
some satisfactory manner. The
builders of the vast American tele.