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In the fall of 1956, when I started school in Evans, Colo., (first grade, because that district did not operate a kindergarten, and this omission permanently warped my inner educational self-esteem & accomplishment psychosector and caused me to drop out of college several times, thereby dooming me to a life of isolation and poverty in a credential-caste society, and I'm still shopping for an attorney willing to take this case), my mother taught me how to use the telephone to call my best friend then, Wayne Tazari.
It was really simple. I just lifted the handset, the
operator came on, and I said I want to talk to Wayne
Tazari.
Moments later, his mother would answer the phone and summon him, and we'd be planning an expedition to some vacant field.
Telephones have not become easier to use since then.
First they brought in dials -- we had an assembly at school
with a big dial on stage, and a guy from the phone company
showed us how to use it. Feeling left out, I asked why it
didn't have a Q.
He explained, and also informed us
we'd have to look up numbers henceforth.
Then they got rid of the exchange names -- our
ELgin
became 35,
Denver's TAbor
became
82,
etc. Then we got Direct Distance Dialing, which
meant area codes.
That arrived pretty late in some places -- I got used to it in Greeley, then moved to Kremmling in 1974, where all long-distance calls still went through an operator. And there, one made a lot of long-distance calls -- Hot Sulphur Springs, the county seat about 15 miles away, was long-distance.
But there was a compensation -- to call a number in town, you needed to dial only the last four digits: 3350 to reach the newspaper office. Salida, when I arrived in 1978, had DDD, and it was so much bigger than Kremmling that we had to dial five digits: 9-6691 to reach the newspaper.
This did not please Mountain Bell. When they replaced
our old exchange so that we could dial
with tones,
we had to use all seven digits, and the corporate
representative said we had been haphazard and would have to
learn correct dialing habits.
Lately, we've also had to learn that not all Salida
numbers start with 539
-- 530
got added a
while back, and you can't just rattle off four digits when
somebody wants a phone number.
I mention all this because I'd like you folks in metro Denver to realize how easy you've had it all these years, and why I'm sick of all the whining about the implementation of a new area code for the metro area.
At least the Public Utilities Commission held some
hearings. Nobody asked us our opinion of getting assigned
to 719
a decade ago, nor did anyone ask the Western
Slope more recently about people felt about 970.
We
just got the expense of printing new stationery and
business cards.
And the 970 zone also got cut off from some connections
because it was the first area code not to have a 0
or 1
as its middle digit, which was how the phone
network used to distinguish area codes from prefixes, and
many computerized PBX systems refused to recognize 970 as a
valid area code.
The issue for the metro area was whether its new 720 area code would have its own geographic area, or whether it would just go to new metro numbers.
In either case, people would have to dial 10 numbers to make a local call. That's more to remember, and it's a nuisance, but out here where calls to nearby towns like Westcliffe and Gunnison are long-distance, we manage to remember all 10 digits. Get used to it.
And in every case, you know that USWest will always have the 303 area code for its headquarters -- it's the duty of the rest of us get to put up with the aggravations.
But with the overlay, the argument goes, if you got a fax line, it might have a different area code than your voice line. And with the overlay, if Acme Gear & Sprocket moves to the other side of Colfax Avenue, then it might keep the same numbers -- those two problems seem to balance out.
So I get the idea that status is involved -- having a
traditional Colorado 303
prefix must be like having
a low license-plate number, making you superior to the
rubes in 719, the hayseeds in 970 and, presumably, the
wrong side of the metro tracks in 720.
Perhaps it goes even deeper, and unbeknownst to most of
us, there are gatherings of people celebrating their area
codes. To the tune of Oh Christmas Tree,
they might
be singing Oh, 303, oh 303, we could not live without
you.
And to Oklahoma,
Nine Seven Zero where the
wind comes rushing from the north ...
Here we might
have, to Clementine,
lived a miner,
seven-one-niner, and his daughter ...
Anyway, enough of the whining, Metro Denver. You'll get used to new area codes and 10-digit phone numbers, just as we have.
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