Telephone memories

Do you remember life before cell phones? Before push-button phones? Before area codes?

I'm not old enough to remember the big wall-hung phones with cranks (except as seen on TV shows like Lassie), but I do recall black phones with dials.

For December's column, published today, I wrote about the telephones of my early years:

When phone numbers were short and the phone was out of reach

By Sandy Nichols Ward

As a child I was told not to touch the telephone. It was a strange and important piece of equipment that only adults could use. It was black and sat on a high shelf in the hall, higher than I could reach. Even as I grew and might have reached it, the phone was definitely off limits.

I recall that our number was 2224 with a letter at the end. The letters designated different ring patterns on a single party line. We were 2224R, perhaps, and my grandparents next door had 2224M. Or maybe they were R and we were M. Since I never used a phone in those days, I didn't know exactly how it worked, but I often heard the adults say those phrases: 2-2-2-4, 2-2-2-4-M and 2-2-2-4-R. One of the numbers was for my father's small business, located out back in the "shop" or garage. That was why it was so important not to play with the telephone. The party line had to be kept available for other people, especially for business calls.  

My father installed an intercom from the house to the shop so that my mother, who did part-time office-work there during our afternoon naps, could hear when we awoke. We could call for her and she'd quickly return to the house. No need to use the telephone, which was out of reach anyway. That was a good system for a while. But one day one of us (my sister and I each deny being the one) got up, went into the bathroom, used the toilet, and soon called out, "MOMMY, come WIPE me!" This loud plea was heard via intercom by all the employees in the garage/shop. That was the end of the intercom!

Another embarrassing story comes from my early school years. I was in 3rd grade at Maple Street School. I was asked to help in the school office. It was the first time I had been selected for such a duty. I didn't know what to expect and wasn't given much orientation or training; I just did small tasks assigned to me. At one point, however, the adults left the room and told me to sit there, watching the office. Soon afterwards, the telephone on the office desk rang. I stared at the ringing phone. paralyzed. I had never touched a phone and didn't know what to do. The phone kept ringing for a while, then stopped. An adult ran back into the office and said in a sharp voice that I should have answered it. But how would I do that? I felt ashamed and scared. I didn't know which was worse, to have failed to answer it, or to admit that I didn't even know HOW to answer it.   They never asked me again to help in the office.

I did eventually, of course, become a user of telephones. I don't remember when or how, but I do recall the feel of the holes on the round dial, and the fact that it was much harder to dial a 9 than a 1 or 2. For a 9, you had to drag your finger (pushing the dial) all the way around – without knocking the phone off its narrow shelf. Today the push-button phones are much easier, though we do have many more digits to dial. I remember when Danvers numbers added the "Spring" exchange, so our number became Spring4-2224. This morphed to 774-2224 when all-number dialing became standard.

Blueberry leaves in the fall

This month's column is now available: "The color of blueberry leaves in the fall"

I have transplanted some blueberry bushes to our yard this fall, and hope to have a local supply of tasty berries and beautiful foliage next year.

The Color of Blueberry Leaves in the Fall

By Sandy Nichols Ward

A brilliant red bush caught my eye as I walked in the woods on a late October afternoon.  Deep red leaves, some almost red-black, others brighter, vibrant in the sunshine. I stopped and stared at the suddenly familiar leaf-shape and instantly recalled my mother's voice.

"The color of blueberry leaves in the fall!"

She loved blueberry bushes and had planted quite a few in our yard in Danvers. They surrounded her laundry yard and eventually grew so high that they shaded some of the laundry, but she didn't cut them back because she so enjoyed their beauty each fall.

We also, of course, enjoyed the fruit in summer. These were small blueberries of an old-fashioned or wild type, not the highly-cultivated ones that my grandfather grew along the path by the garden. His berries were huge and he was very proud of them, but my mother always thought her small ones were tastier. As a kid I wasn't fussy about the taste or size; I'd happily eat any blueberries.

Seeing the intense red color of blueberry leaves now brought to mind a different story, not the taste of summer fruit. I could visualize the hooked rug in the small living room of my childhood home and hear again my mother's tale of its creation. She hadn't made the rug herself, but she had directed its making. Strips of old wool cloth to be used in the hooking process were dyed various colors. Red was the main background color of the rug's design, and my mother wanted the red to match "the color blueberry leaves turn in the fall." She wasn't happy with light red or pink; the red had to be dark and strong. Many samples of dyed wool were rejected until just the right shade was achieved. That's the story I heard in my childhood about a rug created before my birth.

The resulting rug, hooked by Sadie May Morse of Marblehead, was unique and beautiful. Its design had been inspired by a "tree of life" pattern on a small Swedish rug. Sadie enlarged the pattern and incorporated into it various images and symbols that were meaningful to my parents. An image of them dancing together appeared near the center, not far from an image of their small house. The date of their wedding (1940) was hooked into one corner, their initials NPN and JCN in other corners, and the date of the rug (1942) in the fourth corner.

Over the years of living with that rug, we laughed often about its color and colorful history.  In truth, the red background color varied considerably. First of all, the wool strips had come from different sources and did not all take the dye in the same way. Later, sunshine from the windows gradually faded the dyed colors, so the rug became more muted in tone as time passed. There was also the unfortunate day when a house-painter and his can of white paint fell onto the rug. My mother was furious that he had leaned his ladder against the front door. The unlocked door burst open, sending ladder, painter, and paint into the living room! She cleaned the rug as best she could, and no evidence of the accident was visible for a while, unless you bent the rug and looked closely between the loops of wool. As the rug became worn, however, more and more of the white paint residue was revealed. Still, the dominant color was red, reminding us of the lovely color of blueberry leaves in the fall.

[published in the Danvers Herald in print and online November 6, 2008]

Red leaves

On a recent walk in a wooded area near a reservoir, an intensely red bush caught my attention. I stopped to admire it and took this photograph. Such memories flashed in my mind! I'm writing about them for the next column.