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Commentary
The long-forgotten artifact that connected me to my dad
For the duration of my childhood, a heavy, black, rotary phone sat on the corner of my father’s desk.
The handset rested in a sturdy u-shaped cradle, connected to the base by a curled cord. The paint on the fingerholes had long ago been worn away, leaving each circle with a burnished silver patina. All 10 holes were labeled by number, counterclockwise from 1 through 9, with the last assigned the number zero for the operator.
Oh, how I loved that phone. I loved the soft whir it made as the dial rotated forward and then back. I loved how the handset felt, weighty with the importance of an impending call. But in all that time, I never took notice of the number scrawled across the small bit of paper pasted into the middle of the dial. Yellowed, but protected under a sliver of plastic, it read simply, 2-4664.
This past summer, while going through some of my father’s old boxes, I came across a 1955 Newburyport telephone directory. In the early 1950s, he moved to Newburyport after serving in WWII. Young and still a bachelor, my dad rented a house on High Street for himself and his mother. It would remain his residence until he married in 1956.
The directory I found, packed away under a stack of old photographs and Army memorabilia, had been patiently waiting for nearly 70 years.
Gently, I pulled it from the bottom of the box. Although the blue cover had faded with time, a sunny stripe advertising “The Yellow Pages” was still vibrant. An ink drawing of a female telephone operator, replete with a ‘50s-styled bob cut, headset and smile, assured directory users: “I’m ready for your long-distance call.”
It was as if I had opened a time capsule.
Inside the front cover was a section labeled “How to Use the Dial Telephone.” It explained the mechanics of the rotary dial, defined the role of the finger stop, and noted the sound a busy signal would make, should the caller be a technological neophyte. Below that was a description of a “party line.” I sincerely doubt my famously introverted father ever used that function.
The back half of the directory was filled with advertisements. Badger Farms Creamery, boasting “farm fresh dairy products since 1877.” The W.E. Atkinson Coal Company, touted as the “modern way to comfort.” Homespun and wholesome, this plethora of promotions were a fun dalliance but not what I had come to find.
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I gingerly flipped through the remaining pages, looking to see if my father was among the residents listed. And then there it was, at the bottom of page 61, his name alongside the number I had so often seen but never much considered.
2-4664.
Suddenly the image of that battered rotary phone popped into my head, the one with the strange five-digit code. Those numbers provided a connection to a different version of my father; to the young war hero, the bachelor, the man who existed long before my arrival. How ironic that his phone still connected us. It was there during his life without me, and now, still here during my life without him.
The phone, the directory, and my father had all left Newburyport long ago. But for whatever reason, he had held on to the directory for decades, which made me realize I too needed to treat its reemergence with that same reverence.
A quick internet search brought me to the Museum of Old Newbury, a repository of countless local artifacts. I contacted the museum staff and was thrilled to learn they wanted to include the directory in the museum’s collection. It would return to Newburyport, where it belonged.
Not only that, but the museum is located on High Street, the same road on which my father had lived all those decades ago. The directory wouldn’t even have to cross the street to get to its new home at 98 High Street, less than two miles from my father’s former address.
Tucked into the same box where I had found the directory was an old photograph of my father. It was taken in the parlor of his former Newburyport home, likely the same room where that old phone would have been. In the picture he’s sitting between his sister and mother, each gazing in a different direction.
Now only I am left to envision what will happen next.
