When Land Lines Were King, by Karla Stover

 

https://bookswelove.net/stover-karla/

By the same author BWL Publishing:  A Line to Murder (a Tacoma, WA. book.)

                                                              Murder: When One Isn't Enough (murder on Hood Canal.)

                                                              Wynter's Way (gothic at its best.)  

                                                              Parlor Girls (the life and times of the famed Everleigh sisters.) 

                                          When Land Lines Were King,  by Karla Stover

    "What language was that?" Asked a puzzled senior citizen.

    "High school Spanish and proud of it," said a telephone volunteer, hanging up the phone and laughing.

    "My brother hasn't talked to me in 15 years, and he still won't," muttered a man punching the elevator button.

    "I talked to four families in Germany," said an excited elderly woman. "They all went to one one house and hooked upon a speaker phone.

    And so it went on Merrill Lynch's annual Holiday Senior Call Day.

    In 1980 Merrill Lynch came up with the idea of making its phone lines available, at the company's expense, so less-affluent senior citizens could call family and friends for the holidays anywhere in the world. This was not as easy as it sounds. To get the word out, Merrill coordinated with the City's Human Resources Department where people there worked with the individuals, giving them a scheduled time to make their calls based on the time zone of where they were calling. Local ROTC members provided transportation if necessary, arrangements were made with local bakeries to donate cookies, and MCI representatives were invaluable in getting calls through to former east-bloc countries. And, of course, company employees were there all day long. When Call Day first began, one employee's eight-year old son manned the elevator. He couldn't help when he started college but his mother did. She closed herself in a room of phones and spent the day patching calls through for the homebound. In 1992, one of the shut-ins had died and she worked to connect the Tacoma family's with their relatives in Viet Nam so hey could convey the news.

    "Dial tones are different overseas," explained one volunteer. "People often don't know what they're hearing when you hand them the phone. Their faces really light up when someone at the other end picks up their phone and says, 'Hello.' That makes your day."

    "My husband died last year and my finances changed," one lady said. "If it hadn't been for this, I wouldn't have been able to talk to my family,"

     "This is the first time I've talked to my sister in Ireland in 40 years," one said a nun in a local cloistered community.

    The day was as varied as 250 people hoping to connect with family could make it. People got confused on Tacoma's one-way streets. Skateboarders  invaded the parking garage and played dodge-'em with the elderly. Purses and earrings were lost, and one person brought in a bag of garbage and left it under a chair for the janitors to take away later. The Pierce County Executive was a regular volunteer and sometimes a local news station came to film and interview people. In 1997, the program was honored with a Presidential Award for Private Sector Initiatives, the nation's highest honor recognizing volunteer service and community outreach programs.

    At the end of the day, the cookies that hadn't been eaten, or tucked away in pockets, were taken to the Rescue Mission. And one grateful senior summed it up saying, "I don't know who this Marilyn Lynch person is, but she's one heck of a gal."