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Now, fingers just do stumbling
(by Barbara Christian - June 09, 2010)
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WINDOW ON MAIN STREET, BY BARBARA CHRISTIAN
Now, fingers just do stumbling
Do you remember the days when we got just one telephone book? White pages in the front and yellow pages in the back.
In case you have forgotten, the white pages listed people's names, addresses and telephone numbers. The yellow pages were dedicated to commercial listings and advertising.
We let our fingers do the walking once upon a time, but today our fingers get weary plodding through multiple phone books published for the sole purpose of making a buck. It makes us long for those simpler times when Ma Bell had the monopoly on our telephone service and provided the only phone book we needed.
Our hearts leapt with joy when one of these books arrived recently, because it had a section of white pages. But joy was dashed when we discovered they were commercial listings of what was in the expanded yellow pages.
One directory is named the "Yellowbook." The cover refers us to a Web site, if we need to find a residential phone number. If you don't own a computer and cannot access the white-page listings online, then you are sunk. Or you could pay to have the 411 operator help you find who or what you want.
Another claims it is "The Real Yellow Pages." No residential listings there either. No profit in that.
But where is the public service? The good will? Shouldn't residential land-line subscribers have their own book, as we once had?
Another reason for the demise of the traditional white pages is the advent of cell phones. Some folks have abandoned their land lines in favor of mobile phones. Which begs another question: Why don't we have a cell-phone directory?
Remember the old Chagrin Valley Directory. It was in business for about 60 years, a product of our local chamber of commerce. It was nifty. "The Bible" was its nickname. And for good reason.
It featured white residential listings and yellow commercial listings, street maps of the Chagrin Valley by town and a street index plus a criss-cross directory which listed addresses street by street and the phone numbers for those addresses.
It was put together in the chamber offices by a band of dedicated, attention-to-detail workers headed by Zella Davidson. It was accurate, and it was delivered to every doorstep in early autumn.
We have kept our directories since the 1970s, and they still come in handy as historic reference.
But these days the Chagrin Valley Directory is no longer published by the chamber, and there is no Zella Davidson to keep the listings up to date. Sadly, "the Bible" was purchased by an out-of-state company, which did away with all the features that made it special. No maps. No criss-cross.
In the good old days, we received a Chagrin Valley Directory every year without fail. These days distribution is spotty or nonexistent. We haven't gotten one at home in two years, and we've lived at the same South Main Street address for 31 years. Riddle me that, Batman.
On its Web site, the chamber touts inclusion in the directory as a perk for joining. But that's no so much these days ... in this humble opinion.
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