Friday, February 11, 2005

In the desert

I found this wonderful little story in one of my favorite books. It's a story of a phone booth that had been sitting at a crossroads in the Mojave desert that was placed by miners who worked in the area in the 1960's. After they left, the phone stayed. In 1997, a guy named Deuce called the phone number, and kept doing so, until a woman named Lorene answered. Deuce then put that story on the internet (much like I'm doing), and the word spread as more and more people called the number and more and more people went to answer the phone.
I find this whimsical, that so many people would take the time to call and speak with someone that they had never, and proably would never meet. That in spite of all the things that go on in the world, people would want to spend the time and effort to extend a greeting to a stranger.

btw, the phone number is 760-733-9969, but the phone booth was torn down in 2000 due to environmental concerns.

2 comments:

English Professor said...

Oh, I'm sorry it was torn down. I like that story--very existential. But now I have lovely thoughts of it in my head.

Steve said...

After having read that story, I half want to find some random phone booth somewhere, like near a Denny's, or IHOP, or something, and put the phone number on here, so random people can call and leave the story of the conversation...