The Telephone

May 2015

Brent reporting...

Hold onto your socks!
Turns out we grew up without a telephone.

In a conversation in the Cove Point dining room Dad said to Ralph in a comment appropriate to the conversation, "We didn't have a telephone."  I said, "of course we did!"  Dad replied, "We never did!"

Ralph said, "What did you do when you had to make a telephone call?"  Dad said, "we went to the neighbors."

I didn't want to potentially embarrass him in public, so I dropped the subject.

On the way back to his apartment I said, "We definitely had a telephone in Ketchum.  It was a big yellow telephone.  It was in the kitchen on the back wall by the back porch."  He said, "no we didn't.  I said, does the number 726-3339 ring a bell?"  He brightened up, looked at me and said, "it sure does!"

I replied, "that was our telephone number in Ketchum."  He said, "oh, I guess we did.  I sure don't remember it, though."

All this time I thought we had a telephone in Ketchum . . .

David reporting...
I think he was reaching back to his days growing up in Kuna.  I remember our phone number before Ketchum  and Hailey went to seven digits. Number: 3102.  When we changed to seven digits, I think I was in seventh or eighth grade. Ketchum was on a four digit dial system before then.  However, Hailey was on an operator system, just like Mayberry when Andy had to call Sarah.  Also I can remember having a phone when we lived at Brandt's cabins before we move to our house.