Goodbye Operator

In a recent conversation with our young receptionist at my place of business I realized how drastically our methods of communicating with one another has changed. At 24 years old she had never used a rotary dial phone (maybe had never seen one) or picked up the receiver and actually talked to an operator. This is not a meant to be a negative statement just an observation by a member of the older generation about our changing life style. My Nanny definitely did not like the rotary phone you see here. Now for those of you who may not know, my Nanny was not someone hired by my mother to look after me. I don't really know about the rest of the country but I suppose in the south and difinetely in cajun country before a baby is born a Parrain and a Nanan is chosen to assume responsibility for the child in case something happens to the parents. Well my Nanan, who was also my cousin Lois, was a swithchboard operator for the bell telephone company. I'll never forget the excitment we all experienced when Nanny landed a job as an operator. Of course, she had to go to New Orleans for training for about a couple of days as I recall and that was a big deal in itself. Now to appreciate this experience, you have to imagine living in this time period when not everyone went to college, not everyone had a car and some people did not have telephones. My brother Percy was the first one in our family to graduate from high school in 1954, (the other two quit school) and the first one in the whole clan to go to the big school (LSU). So, for my Nanny to travel to New Orleans by Greyhound bus, because her family did not own an automobile, was a big deal in 1952. When Nanny came back from her training in New Orleans she worked in Franklin at the telephone office at 800 First Street which is now the Edward Jones office. Now before the mid 1960's when the rotary phone came out, to make a phone call you simply picked up the receiver and when the operator said "number please" you would tell her what number you wanted or sometime you would just tell her the name of the person or the grocery store or whatever and she would connect you. Just like Mayberry, a much simpler time. And our phone numbers had no area code prefix because there were not enough phones in the country to warrant such a system. I think most people remember thier old phone numbers. Our's was 1424 and my wife recalls thier number as being 456 and 911 was not an emergency number but probably belonged to Joe Boudreaux or some other citizen of the community. Very simple huh. Many times I remember picking up the receiver and the operator was my Nanny. When she would say "number please" , even though she knew it was me I suppose she had to be formal because she had a supervisor standing behind her (see picture) I would recognize her voice. I'd say "Hey Nanny its me Gerald" and she would ask how Momma was doing or how I was doing in school and after a short conversation she would ask what number I wanted. Now get this. Some people had what was known as a party line. Three or four households had the same number. To know who the call was for, you had to listen to the ring. One person might have three short rings, the other three long rings and the other two shorts and a long. If you picked up the phone while another person was on the line you could listen in on their conversation. But in the 60's our easy living world was changing and so did the telephone. Some brilliant engineer probably got together with an efficiency expert and invented the rotary dial phone. There was no need for an operator, you would simply pick up the receiver, listen for the dial tone, stick your finger in the hole corresponding with the number you wanted and turned the dial until you hit the finger stop. You would do that for each digit in the phone number. Times had changed in all the small towns in America where sometime you got the town news from the operator. These days no one ever talks to an operator, most people don't even talk to the person they dialed they just text message. Saves a lot of time in our busy multi tasking world.