Telephone Directories

Good Morning Ted and Jody:

Someone delivered to our door a telephone directory for the area today.  I looked in the cupboard where we keep the telephone directories to replace last year’s version of the one delivered today.  We have four outer directories in that cupboard.    I got out each and looked at them closely.  None of them, including the one to be replaced, had any pencil or pen notations.  In years gone by, we used to have to take the covers and a few inside pages out of the old telephone directory that had “important” numbers, address and recipes written in and on it.  Then we had to put a bookmark in the new directory where the takeout and delivery Chinese and pizza places and the likes numbers were.  We had to write emergency contact numbers on the new directory.  Then we were ready to put the old directory in a closet ready to be thrown away in a year (we never threw the old one away until we were very sure we had all the information in it saved in the new one.  Indeed, if we moved, the information in the old directory was especially useful to keep in touch with folks from whom we had moved away (until we got settled in our new location and met new folks).    As I say, I looked at the old one closely and found nothing to save, nothing.  So, two questions arise.  Why do “they” still publish and distribute phone books?  And, what happened to all that important information that we used to save?

I am stumped at why “they” still publish telephone directories.  I suppose there are lots of folks who still use them.  So perhaps that is why.  I know the Boy Scouts and Lions Clubs still need them to make weight in their paper drives.  I also realize they come in very handy when the power goes out and one needs some paper to wad up to put under some wood sticks to start a cheery blaze in the fireplace.  But those are the best guessed I can come up with.

As for the telephone numbers that we need I realize with smart phones all the numbers that we use regularly are in it.  So, we do not have to look them up.  Indeed, I had my own number printed on a label for the back of my phone as I have little and infrequent need to give it to anyone.  In addition to phone information, the smart phone has all the addresses.  I wouldn’t be surprised if I asked the smart phone for directions to Harry’s house it would tell me (but not before asking which of the three Harries I know).  Then too, all my appointments (with addresses, phone numbers and the like) are on my smart phone as well.  So, the smart phone has replaced paper and writing instruments and a large chunk of my brain’s memory cells which now go unused and teach the other brain cells to be lazy so my thinking is be delegated to the smart phone as well.

Now, I am not about to advocate going back to depending upon the phone book and discarding the smart phone.  No, in my case, I use the smart phone’s camera a lot as it does a good job and fits in my shirt pocket.  Since I stopped smoking cigarettes a few years ago, that shirt pocket had been empty and feeling neglected and unneeded.  Well, the smart phone fits there and makes that pocket feel part of the game again.  Indeed, if smart phones get much bigger, pockets will too.  So, we lost the usefulness of a telephone book in this digital age, but shirt pockets (and back jeans pockets from what I have observed) have grown in stature and importance.

Warmest regards, Ed

PS:  We had a rainbow in downtown Longview yesterday afternoon.

PPS: Where can I find temperatures to use when cooking various foods on an induction cook top?  Since the induction cook top allows for control of temperature there must be a publication with that information.