Strictly a Loner: My Life and Times with Plattsburgh's Poorest Millionaire

Butler 3- 4845

Kathy L. Baumgarten

"I have always wished that my computer would be as easy to use as my telephone. My wish has come true. I no longer know how to use my telephone" 

-- Bjarne Stronstrup

            Since Emma Nutt Day, September 1^st, commemorating the day that the first female telephone operator was hired in 1878, has been overlooked, I cannot let November 10^th  pass. That’s the date that direct dialing for coast to coast calls was first available back in 1951. Unlimited national dialing plans have been popular for so long already that it may be hard to understand that one used to have to ask an operator, like Emma Nutt, to manually plug you into the number you were calling. Today, automatic switching systems do that instantly, letting us talk to one another as soon as we think of them and satellites even let us call from anywhere we can pick up a signal, without any wires at all. Emma Nutt would be amazed at our progress….and unemployed.  

            Some might say it’s silly to get sentimental about old technology, but consumers can actually use it to control progress. Sharing what we miss is useful feedback for manufacturers; indeed, unlimited dialing plans only came about after consumers complained that their dial-up service was running their bills up too high. Faced with scores of customers threatening to pull the plug, communication giants amazingly responded by gradually lowering the bar… and laughed all the way to the bank as business boomed. Similarly, telephone number assignment protocols were also impacted by customer demand.  

            In a quirky example of the fickle human mind, I often forget how old I am but easily recall the phone number we had when I was growing up: BUtler 3-4845. I’ll bet many readers feel the same about their old numbers. The demand for cell phones brought with it a need for new, three-digit prefixes, and customers received a new number every time they got a new phone. When savvy providers learned that customers preferred to keep their old number, the capability to transfer old numbers to new phones became a marketing ploy to promote the next newest, more expensive, model phone. This, coupled with unlimited dialing plans, allows folks to keep their old number, area code and all, no matter where they go.

            Sadly, however, cell phone numbers just don’t have the dignity of the old home phone numbers. One can no longer roll into any town, pick up a phone book and look up an old friend. Directories are now the domain of hard-line, home phone owners- a dying breed. Increasingly, long-held home phone numbers are a symbol of a kind of stability falling rapidly to the wayside in a downward economy. Case in point, when my thrifty in-laws ditched their old home phone in favor of cell phones, they lost their sole ownership of a number they’d “owned” for over forty years. Now reduced to just another contact in my cell phone, they are no longer a special number I can recall off the top of my head.

            Not only have scores lost a connection to their childhood, but the ability to rattle off telephone numbers from memory is indeed becoming a lost art. Incoming calls can be auto-saved by cell phone users without them even having to actually read it or key it in with their own fingers, so there’s no need to memorize them. It’s really no wonder that our nation is lagging in math and science skills behind other nations. Worse yet, time is against us: as we age we start remembering crazy things like old phone numbers and addresses, and forget the new ones. The thing is, if we haven’t been committed any old numbers to memory, we’ll literally have nothing to remember at all.

            This leads us to the recent phenomenon of individuals not knowing their own phone number. “I never call myself,” they explain. Since they can’t find where it’s saved on their “smarter-than-I-am” device, they end up calling someone so that person can see it and, of course, auto-save it. This wouldn’t have been a problem years ago, when the number was pasted on the dial. One of my earliest memories is the bell-ring of our old phone, the sound of footsteps crossing the room, the sight of a well-manicured hand picking up the heavy, black receiver and saying, “Butler 3-4845.”

            While that could have been Marilyn Monroe in “Diamonds Are A Girl’s Best Friend,” it was just my mother, who actually worked as a telephone operator in a local hotel. At that time, phone users began each conversation by identifying themselves by their number, at work and at home. The first two numbers were usually said as part of a word to make it easier to recall. Soon, however, that original habit was supplanted by a simple “Hello,” and we all had to start remembering what everyone else’s voices sounded like on the telephone, which was confusing for those with hearing problems or those who, like me, just don’t pay attention.

            While “Hello” was a triumph for the “I am not a number!” generation’s agenda, their gentle ideas on individuality are only given lip-service today while our lives are actually dominated by an unmanageably quantity of numbers, product keys, passwords and logons. Will I look back and miss the very first password I ever created? Not likely. What I need today is a personal operator to just plug me into my world by just dialing one number.

            Emma Nutt, where are you?

 Kathy Baumgarten is the author of “Strictly a Loner: My Life and Times with Plattsburgh’s Poorest Millionaire,” a poignant little tale of life with a hoarder and miser who once roamed the streets of Plattsburgh. Ask for it at local bookstores, at Studley Printing and Publishing 4701 Rte 9 in Plattsburgh or online at www.strictlyaloner.com

Where There’s Smoke

Kathy L. Baumgarten

8 June 2005 The Lake Champlain Weekly

                Sometimes, I lose track of what I’m cooking for dinner, usually because I am fully enthralled in some sort of literary exercise at the computer. The smoke alarm often tells me what the timer omits, informing our family motto, “Where there’s smoke, there’s dinner.” However, a burned dinner is not always a bad thing. I have a lot of very happy memories because of burned meals, especially chicken for some reason.

                When I was little, I spent summers at my aunt and uncle’s farm in Erie, Pennsylvania. In those days, men were men and if anything was in need of grilling, the men folk took over. My aunt would not touch the grill. She did all the other cooking. It was Uncle Don’s job to grill and she took a non-interference policy. After work one hot weekday, my uncle plodded over to the grill, made some gestures aimed at cooking the chicken, and went to sit down in his glider. I had also had had a long, hard day helping in the garden, climbing trees and playing in the wash bucket that served as my wading pool. I saw his lap available and immediately climbed up into it. Don never had any kids of his own, and, giving me a tight hug, launched us off together in a delightful exploration of the land of Z’s.

                I vaguely recall hearing my aunt come in and remind him to check the chicken, but we just pressed our heads closer together to blot out that nagging sound. He gave a little push on the glider and we fell asleep again until someone shouted into our ears that something seemed to be on fire.

                I grudgingly slid off, a bit groggy and rubbing my eyes. My uncle slowly made his way over to the grill, making no apologies that our dinner was several shades darker than “too crisp.” Luckily, the roast corn was still decent, but everyone else was moaning about some good pieces of meat being ruined with phrases usch as, “what with the price of things these days”, and “back in the Depression”, and so forth…but I thought it was a good deal to get a hot meal and a good nap with my Uncle Don.

                Another year, a Sunday afternoon in the winter abyss after the holidays were all done and St. Valentine’s Day was miles off. Mother put in some chicken to bake, and then decided that we all had Cabin Fever and should take a “quick drive” to get some air. We ended up sightseeing, taking the “tour” of all the houses she and Dad nearly bought and dizzyingly covered miles of countryside. I think we got a bit lost, but she denied it. We came home and the house was filled with a lovely aroma of roast chicken as we hung up our coats. We set the table and no one seemed to mind that the meat was mummified, because our little souls were filled and our house was snug and warm after driving through the countryside on a snowy evening.

                I miss these people in my life very much, these burners-of-chicken who put people before poultry. I often think that I would do just about anything to share even the most wretched plate of food for just a few moments with them once again.

One Sweet Deal

Kathy L. Baumgarten

Originally Published 7 April 2004 The Lake Champlain Weekly

            As if it wasn't a sweet enough deal to work in a library with email, A/C and my own tiny fridge, Easter had come to Ahmed al Jaber Air Base in Kuwait, 2003. It was a land probably unused to the chocolate bunnies that were multiplying like, well, rabbits. Thanks to the US Mail and the heat not having reached 90 degrees yet, it was still safe to send chocolate there without it melting en route. It was a rare soul on post that wasn't stuffed with peeps or jelly beans yet.

            To make the deal sweeter still, one of my dear sisters had sent me a case of Mallo Cups, one of my favorite sweets. In typical feast or famine style, another package with candy in it from my other sister arrived the same day, and cards got switched. I didn't know which of them had sent the Mallo Cups, but I had my suspicions.

            I kept my treasure in my office fridge, strictly rationing them to two a day. I found they were a great tool in bartering or as a special thank-you.

            When we were kids, my sisters had begun saving Mallo Cup coupons. If you sent in 500 points worth, you got a free case of Mallo Cups sent to you. After they left home, I inherited their coupon stash. What a break. I only had to eat my way through about a dozen or so packs more to earn my free case.

            When the case came, I stuffed myself silly. I finished the case up in maybe two weeks.

            And I lost my taste for them altogether.

I didn't eat another one for a long, long time. When I joined the Air National Guard, for some reason I began to crave them again. I knew both my sisters knew I had renewed my addiction. The problem was, I thanked the wrong sister for sending me "a special box".

            What was the bitter deal was that I learned upon my return Stateside in July that my sister (the "unthanked" one in L.A.) had cancer. When talking on the phone to her husband, I expressed gratitude for her writing and sending things over, even though her health was sliding downhill. He said it was a real shame that the box of Mallo Cups she had sent never arrived. She had been so excited to surprise me with them. She always did give such thoughtful gifts. I declared that I had thought the other sister had sent them because she was the one who teased me the most about my cravings.

Oh no, it was his wife that sent them, for sure.

            He told me it would mean a lot if I would call my sister at the hospital and tell her that I had gotten them after all. Although she could barely speak or hold the phone up to her ear, I could tell in her voice that she was relieved that her "baby sis" had gotten the precious shipment after all.

            And it was bitter, yet so sweet when I said my last farewell to her, and tucked in a few "50-pointers" that I saved from her gift to take with her to that place where all the sweet things are redeemed.

Good Morning World,