TOY PHONE CALL
Kids love telephones. They like to imitate adult conversations on their toy phones; and of course today they have the toy cell phones. Back in 1960, however, when Sandy was five years old, her toy telephone was the old-fashioned kind. But it might have been a very unusual phone indeed.
At that time, Sandy and her family lived in the beautiful Berkshire Hills of Massachusetts. And it was Christmas Day when she had this remarkable experience. Sandy wanted to call her grandmother to tell her about the new Chatty Cathy doll and the other presents she had received for Christmas. The house phone was hung high on the wall, however – too high for her to reach without help. Unfortunately, her dad and her brother had gone out to shovel snow, and her mother was in the shower.
Sandy couldn’t wait. She thought she would burst if she couldn’t tell her grandmother right away about all her new treasures. “I was becoming increasingly impatient,” she remembers. “I decided to pretend to call my grandmother on the toy telephone that I got for Christmas. Back then, where I lived, there were no dial phones; all calls were operator assisted, and when I picked up the receiver on my toy telephone, I distinctly heard an operator say, ‘What number please?’
“I was shocked, but I told her my grandmother's number, which I still remember to this day. I heard the phone begin to ring, and soon my grandmother, with her heavy Italian accent, was saying hello. I immediately began telling her all about my Chatty Cathy doll, but she wanted to know where my mother was. I explained that my mother was in the shower, and my dad and brother were outside. She knew that I could not use the telephone by myself, and asked me how I climbed up to use the phone high up on the wall. I explained that I had called her on my toy telephone. She laughed heartily before telling me to have my mother call when she got out of the shower.
“When my mother got out of the shower, I tried to tell her that I had really talked to Grandma on my toy phone, and that she wanted my mother to call her. My mother laughed like my grandmother did, but since I kept insisting that she call Grandma, she finally did. When she discovered that I really had talked to my grandmother, I got in big trouble. My mother insisted that I had somehow dangerously climbed the wall to use the phone. I insisted that I had called Grandma on my toy phone, and I got in bigger trouble for lying.”
Sandy spent the rest of Christmas morning in her room, falsely accused of dangerous climbing and lying. “I was frustrated about that,” she says, “but I couldn't help but smile over the fact that I had somehow called my grandmother on my toy telephone that Christmas morning. It had to be magic.” __________________
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