On several of the police shows that I watch, an officer will give a business card to someone, and say to that person, “Call me if you need me.” I wondered about that commitment when I first saw that exchange, but after the 900th time that I’ve seen and heard it, I wonder how the officer will answer the phone. Will they say, “This is officer Clopensteen: Who dis?”
My bosses at this publication have been kind enough to print business cards for me. The cards have my name and cell phone number on them and identify me as “Columnist/Correspondent” for the Weekly View. I have passed out those cards to some of the people with whom I have interacted, but I’ve tried to make sure that I tell those people that if they want to call me, they should text me first, telling me who they are. If I do not know the number of the person calling me, I will not answer. The phone numbers of my three children (all of them old people) are saved on my phone; I know who has called me. I also have saved the numbers of the two grandchildren that have cellphones, so that when they call me, I answer “Hi, Imani!” Or “Hi, Xavion!” They are both under 40 years old, so they don’t leave messages in the way that we old people do. We old people leave messages that summarize the lives that we have lived since the last time that you saw us, while young people, when they leave messages at all, will say “Hi: Call me. Bye.” Who is “me?” Oh, right: I have that number saved.
When I was in high school, I had a telephone installed in the house that I lived in with my mother. I do not know how that was possible: I was 15 years old. I had a job as a page in the closed stacks of the University of Pittsburgh library, but I was making $1.00 per hour. But I had a phone, and the few people to whom I had given my number would call me. Those “few people” were all girls, and this was long before the 1981 hit by the R&B group Skyy, who sang, “Here’s my number and a dime, call me anytime.” But I did spend some long hours lying on the bed with the phone cradled on my shoulder, talking to my young loves. (Wait: Did I say “loves?” Oops…)
When I lived in St. Louis, one of my good friends would call me as she was driving to school, and we would talk about the lives that we had lived since last we spoke. (The day before.) It would be years before I told her that, when she called me at 7:30 a.m. from New Albany Indiana, I was answering the phone at 6:30 a.m. But it did not matter to me, for she was (is) my friend, and when she calls, I answer. She no longer calls me on the way to school — she has retired from that life — but when she calls me at any other time, I answer.
Few of us have “home phones” these days, and I have deleted those numbers of those who might, from my cell phone records. I would not have called those numbers anyway, but I decided that I did not need to have those digits clogging up my listings. But if I have given you my number, you may call me. If I know you, or your number, I will answer.
If I’m not indisposed.
cjon3acd@att.net