Page 296 - WhyAsInY

Why (as in yaverbaum)
analog keypad and slots into which you put coins to pay for the privilege of use. That enclosure was known as a “telephone booth,” or “phone booth” for short. Phone calls—especially those that were known as “long-distance” phone calls or those the duration of which was antici- pated to be greater than three minutes—required a handful of nickels (coins representing one-twentieth of a dollar), dimes (one-tenth) and quarters (self-explanatory), unless the calls were to your parents, in which case not only would the call not be long but also, and more impor- tant, the dime that you would use to initiate a conversation with an “operator” (an actual person) would be returned to you virtually imme- diately by your saying that you wished to make a “collect” call (one where you could “reverse the charges”) if, as you would expect, your parents agreed to pay. Apparently, telephone booths are such relics that Wikipedia devotes a lengthy article to them, complete with photos. I commend that article to those of you who wish deeper knowledge on the subject (assuming that Wikipedia still exists).
But, I guess that I once again digress. Let us therefore return to Alabama. I was in a phone booth in Selma because, almost immediately after commencement, I had joined three other guys—only one of them known to me, Michael Rosen (whose parents, the careful reader will recall, had cemented our childhood friendship by visiting a second- degree sunburn on me at “Brighton Private”; for how that related to Russian dancing, see Chapter Seven)—for a trip by rented automobile around the United States, a trip that should have been the basis for a bildungsroman but instead ended up being an unenlightening tour of too few natural wonders and far too many major league ballparks, all with virtually no human contact (in or out of our car). When the trip had (thankfully) entered its last leg, I was in a position to check in with my folks and give them something resembling an ETA when my mother told me that I had received a letter from Columbia Law School, one that they had not opened. The key question: was it thick or thin?
It was thick. I therefore concluded that it contained good news; I asked them to open it and tell me what it said. It was then that I con-
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