This was an article that I published in my real estate newsletter in 1979. I want to share it with you now.
On a recent visit to the lovely little town of Grass Valley, Kathy and I had occasion to stop by the local office of the telephone company and I want to share our experience with you. You have probably seen some of the “Telephone Stores” where all of the designer phones are on display. At each store there is a sign-in register and they are generally a beehive of activity. We walked into the “Grass Valley Telephone Store” also business office, administration, and you name it. The office was neat and the people were pleasant, but the entire facility was about 15’ X 20’. There was a waiting area, a counter for information and bill paying, 3 or 4 desks, and a “telephone store”. Incidentally there was also a sign-in register. The irony is that there were three women seated at their respective desks, and there was a man behind the counter and we were the only other people in the building. None of them appeared to be too busy doing anything, except for curiously checking us out. You have to remember that this place was very small –I mean between the employees and Kathy & I we were practically bumping elbows. We approached the man at the counter and ask for a local telephone directory and wanted some information on where phone service was available in the outlying areas. He ask us if we had signed in. Kathy and I couldn’t even believe the question—I mean we had just walked in taken three steps to the counter in full view of him and the three women. Of course the answer was no. He ask us if we would please sign-in and have a seat. This was preposterous. I felt like a five year old playing “Telephone Store”. We did as we were told—we went to the register which was blank and with his assistance signed in. He ushered us three feet to the waiting area. We sat down and made ourselves comfortable. He left us and walked by one of the women and said something to her. She came over to us and offered us a cup of coffee while we were waiting—we declined which may have been a mistake because we didn’t know how long we might have to wait. I said, “that we just wanted some information about…” She interrupted and said that Mrs. Montague would be with us in a moment. We didn’t know whether Mrs. Montague was the woman working on the crossword puzzle or the one doing her nails. We soon found out –I think she got stumped on 23 down so she came over to the sign-in register—by now this whole scene was becoming a joke. She hadn’t acknowledged us directly—as she read the name on the register it became obvious that she was having a hard time with my handwriting. She looked up from the register and called Mr. & Mrs. Humslinger. That was close enough…we stood up and she introduced herself and showed us to her desk. She was delightful and very helpful. We soon knew all about her family, where she was born, what her husband did for a living. We also shared the pictures of our children. After a nice long talk we finally got down to business. We ask for a telephone directory—she completed a request form immediately. She then handed us the form and told us to take it to the counter on our way out. We sensed that we were doing something very important, we just couldn’t quite grasp what it was. Mrs. Montague ask us if there was anything else she could help us with. We ask her about telephone service near Rough and Ready, California. Looking back that was a big mistake. Unless we were history majors compiling data for our thesis. She ask us to join her at the big wall map. She proceeded to tell us everything that has happened in all of these small towns over the past 50 years. We thanked her for her help and indicated that we would have to be on our way. We walked 2 steps to the counter and turned in the requisition, he made a change on it and had me initial the change then disappeared to the “Telephone Store Stock Room” and returned with a telephone directory for us. We thanked him and left. We had had plans of going to the Chamber of Commerce to pick up some brochures, but decided that might be trying to squeeze too much into one day. After all we didn’t want to sit through another history lesson.
I’m probably sounding very cynical and I really don’t mean to be. I love the slower pace—I enjoy the people immensely and they are warm and friendly. They always seem to have the time to say hello and to strike up a conversation. I love the telephone store incident because it is so typical of a small town…they just march to the beat of a different drum and in a lot of ways I like that beat…This story supports my premise that it is neat when you’re small.
