The Book
Remember that time when once a year, a private company would release a book to almost everybody for free that contained the name, address, and phone number for everyone that lived in a particular area … and another for every business in the region – and similar books were handed out across the entire country for every region of the country.
Local libraries often carried out of area books so that patrons could access information outside their area.
Every so often, a booth standing unattended out in public also had one of these books available.
And if that wasn’t enough, you could use your phone to ask someone about someone else’s phone number anywhere in the country. For free. Semi-anonymously – or fully anonymous with a pay phone.
That practice ended years ago. It’s not so simple finding similar information now. Want to get in touch with an old friend that you lost contact with? It’s next to impossible to even discover an email address let alone a phone number or physical address.
And even if you find such info, you have to give up a pint of blood and your first-born to access that information.
So why did I feel so much less concerned then than I do now?
Short story. 70 years ago I went to a dance and met a charming young lass. Asked her for her phone number and she said it was in the phone book. She did not say which phone book. She was from a neighboring town and I spent some time hunting down her number. Was worth all the effort. We were married a year later.
Correction. That should have been 60 years. Tempus fugits.
A couple’o years ago we had a Yellow Pages show up. I hadn’t seen one of those in forever. This one was maybe half an inch thick, but back in the day it was not just one, but two three-inch volumes.
Not only do we no longer have a drawer near the phone in the kitchen set aside for the Yellow Pages, we no longer have a phone in the kitchen.
That thing stayed with us all the way till the next day our recycling can was picked up.
In 1978 I picked up the yellow pages (business only in that version of The Book). I looked up an attorney and found one in the next city over. Paid him $5,000 to help me close down my little business and file a bankruptcy. He never filed the paper work, or helped me to file the paperwork. Several months later when I was in trouble, I called and asked him why he hadn’t filed the paperwork–“your problem is you’ve got no family. I didn’t show up at the investigator’s office because I had to take my new Mercedes in for its 500 mile check up.” Needless to say he kept the $5,000. If that book were still around I would not even open it!