Electric Cake Mixer and Classic Car Floorboard Bolt

Crossed telephone lines. One summer night. Listening to the radio as the deejay took requests and dedications for songs ---

That was over sixty years ago! And there’s more. So much more to the story than a phone call.

Step back for a few moments with me if you will, to the 60s and you can see and hear history being made...

Our story begins from a phone call in the house on the side of the mountain.

There wasn’t even a rotary dial on the phone I was using, in fact, there were no push buttons either. Nor was a private phone line available in the coal camp where I was raised.

It was the summer of ‘60 and I was a teen ager; that was the era of “puppy love” and Doo-Wop sounds. Street dances, sock hops and record hops were offered regularly. To while away the time, I (as many teenagers did), loved listening at night to my favorite disc jockey awaiting an opportunity to call in a song of request for my teen age crush.

On this night though, as I attempted to call in that special dedication, the phone service went awry! First, I had to go through the operator and ask her to get the number for me, but before she could say, “sorry, that line is busy,” it sounded like hundreds of other teenagers connected simultaneously and somewhere ‘out there’, through the phone cable, amidst a large group of puppy love- smitten teenagers wanting to request a love song, I heard a voice say, “what’s your name?” and I said, “well, what’s your name?” He said, “Give me your number and I’ll call you back. I can‘t hear well through all this noise” Not sure if he was serious, but I gave him my number anyway and hung up and he did call back. Again and again and again.

He taught me to drive his '52 Ford pickup, straight drive with column shift. I'm forever grateful for that I learned the language of mechanic speak over time which helped. I've enjoyed being able to, at any given moment, put aside my mixer long enough to go outdoors and with a wrench in hand, steady a floorboard bolt in a '55 Mercury.

There are more facts that gave us a front row seat that revealed a changing society and history taking place over the years.

We have known each other for 62 years, watched society and culture change; it was the draft and Viet Nam and protest riots, it was the Cold War and fallout shelter signs posted everywhere. It was the announcement over the school’s p.a. system of the tragic assassination of President Kennedy.

And we watched as the Beatles stepped off an airplane, bringing a new brand of music to America.

And we watched our children, along with many of their friends, grow up into responsible adulthood. As we look back and celebrate, we also look up and give thanks for the blessings given.

We are thankfully celebrating 61 yrs of marriage this year as I continue to use kitchen equipment purchased with ...S&H green stamps! And that started my addiction to clipping coupons, box tops and eventually upc's from packages. I literally watched the hi-tech age being ushered in. 

An older and wiser self, no more peace signs as I greet friends, I now say "Shalom." For I have discovered the real meaning of Peace.

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