Seaside signal. (Seaside, Or.) 1905-current, August 09, 2019, Image 4

Seaside signal., August 09, 2019, Page A4, Image 4

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Newspaper Page TextA4 • Friday, August 9, 2019 | Seaside Signal | SeasideSignal.com SignalViewpoints Clark Kent looks for a phone booth SEEN FROM SEASIDE R.J. MARX I f there is a printed version of comfort food, it must be the phone book. What I really like most is the crisp pages, the smell of ground pulp, the thou- sands of names, tiny fonts and no internet addresses. And no “@,” “dots” or underscores. For a writer or researcher, phone books are precious. The Seaside Museum and History Center has some clas- sics. They are a remarkable his- tory tool. I may be giving out a trade secret, but when you want to add sparkle to your history paper, read a phone book. You never know what you’ll ﬁ nd — including a cast of characters for your next screenplay. Phone numbers have been an inspiration for Hollywood and Tin Pan Alley for decades. There’s swing bandleader Glenn Miller’s “PEnnsylvania 6-5000” — with band members shouting out the phone number every chorus. Remember the ﬁ lm “BUtter- ﬁ eld 8” starring Elizabeth Taylor as a troubled party girl? Author John O’Hara’s title was named for a phone exchange. I give credit to a name-tag wearing friend at a recent Sea- side event. She identiﬁ ed her- self as “867-5309” — “Jenny,” readily identiﬁ able to anyone who remembers the 1981 hit by Tommy Tutone. Didn’t you hate it when Hol- lywood ﬁ lms eliminated using “real” phone numbers and made everybody’s number start with “555”? I get it, but it still takes me beyond the fourth wall. Even area codes aren’t what they used to be. In L.A. peo- ple would pay a premium for a “213,” including some movie nabobs who wouldn’t move to the Valley because of the dreaded “818” area code. Like- wise, Manhattanites reveled under the magic of “212” and recoiled from “646” and “917.” It used to be everyone in Ore- gon could unite under “503.” Now you may be “541,” “971” or “458” — or any other preﬁ x used on a digital network. Ever wonder what Seaside’s “738” exchange stands for? Intui- tively, it would seem the ﬁ rst two digits would stand for “Seaside.” Not so. Jeff Ter Har helped me out with this one — it’s REdﬁ eld-8. One ringy-dingy With the advent of rail, by the late 19th century, Seaside was This booth in Seaside oﬀ ers a glimpse into the past — but no phone. File photo A phone booth in Seaside was hit by a late-night bomb in 1996. No one was hurt. building up as a summer tourism destination. When telegraph and long dis- tance telephone came in, the com- bined population of Seaside and West Seaside — on opposite sides of the Necanicum — was 500, with a summer population bulging to 10,000. The Seaside Museum and His- torical Society has a representative selection of phone books, includ- ing a 1902 guide printed in Asto- ria listing county businesses: “An alphabetically arranged list of busi- ness ﬁ rms, private citizens and public institutions.” In 1906, Seaside saw the instal- lation of a telephone exchange and electric light plan. Most phone people didn’t actu- ally dial a phone until decades later — calls were operator assisted. “If you call by number, you’ll have faster service,” reads a tip from a 1940s phone book. “You’ll save time, and calling by number means better service for everyone.” directory offered these emergency instructions: “Call or dial ‘Oper- ator’ and say: “I want to report a ﬁ re,” and “I want the police.” You could even get the time of day from the operator, ‘WHERE DOES CLARK although it would cost you the price of a local call. KENT CHANGE NOW Even into recent history, the dreaded party line was a THAT THERE ARE fact of life. NO PHONE BOOTHS No, it was no party — as someone who experienced OUT THERE?’ this while living in a rural region in the 1980s — it was a shared line that could be inter- rupted by your shared linemate at any time. The phone company pro- vided guidance: “Space your calls instead of making a whole series of them,” advised Cowboy Clem. “And talk only as long as necessary.” Keep kids away from party lines, Clem added. “Ask them to be considerate, too.” But who was it that asked me, where does Clark Kent change now that there are no phone booths out there? It’s not like he’s going to go into the changing room at The Gap. Or is he? The outlook for the phone booth industry “looks bleak,” CNN commented in a March 2018 story. From a high of 2 mil- lion phone booths in 1999, that number had shrunk to a mere 100,000, with about a ﬁ fth of those in New York, according to the Federal Communications Commission. How many Seasiders recall the September day in 1996 when the city “awoke with a blast” at the corner of North Holladay and First Avenue was blown up? Seaside Police Chief Ken Alm- berg at the time said the device used in the 3 a.m. bombing was black explosive powder packed in paper tubing. The detonation blew glass 50 feet in every direction. Fortunately no one was hurt. “It’s unusual to have one dam- aged in this way,” Jim Haynes a spokesman for the phone booth company, U.S. West, told the Sig- nal at the time. The telephone itself, he added, was still functioning after the The party line was the bane of every blast. customer. A 17-year-old male seen near the scene was identiﬁ ed as a sus- pect. He was taken to the Seaside Local phone book publisher police station for questioning and Margaret D. Beacon provided what amounted to a visitor’s guide then released to his mother. Hopefully he has adapted to Seaside. to the cell phone era with less “Nearly all of our guests from hostility. time to time request information During a recent stroll, I was of some sort — where to ﬁ nd cot- startled out of my reverie by the tages or hotel accommodations, where to go, what to see, ‘Can you phone booth still standing on Ave- nue C and Columbia. tell me where John Doe lives?’ I poked my head inside ... and other kindred questions,” Bea- unfortunately the phone is no lon- con wrote in the 1944 edition. ger there. In the years long before 911, And what would you expect? Seaside’s January 1953 telephone Bachelor Nation awaits a summer of love VIEW FROM THE PORCH EVE MARX B ecause the news is so exhausting and likely to bum me out, I’ve spent an inor- dinate amount of time this summer watching television. In addition to total and complete immersion into the HBO series “Big Little Lies,” “Divorce,” and the utterly terrifying “Years and Years” a diabolically disturbing dystopian story set in Britain only a few years into the future where political, environmental, and eco- nomic crises will make your brain explode, I’ve spent weeks, many weeks, this summer chilling out to Season 15 of “The Bachelorette.” Initially I said I wouldn’t watch because of my strongly dislike of the star, Hannah Brown, a former Miss Alabama I already knew from her turn on Colton Underwood’s Bachelor season. Hannah struck me as dumb as a box of rocks, and pro- grammed, due to some old former boyfriend trauma, to always go for the wrong guy. I wasn’t wrong. PUBLISHER EDITOR Kari Borgen R.J. Marx ABC TV After a few appearances on the Bachelor franchise, Ashley and Jared ﬁ nally found true love. Reader, I couldn’t not watch. Hannah grew on me. By the third episode I was hooked by her sad, crooked smile and squinty eyed expressions that so dramatically telegraphed her confusion, as well as anger. I was drawn in by her vul- nerability and her fraught emo- tional state. Hannah Brown is the only Bachelorette I can think of to cancel a date because her tummy hurt too much from crying. Twice, from emotional fatigue, she took to her bed. Predictably, she fell hard and fast for the very worst guy, Luke, a creepy, misogynistic, blond bearded character from Gainesville, GA who quickly earned the ani- mosity of every other male in the house. This should have been a warn- ing to Hannah, who instead decided to champion him. Very late in the season, Hannah gave Luke the boot, but only after he got all stroppy on her over the Fantasy Suites. The Fantasy Suites, if you don’t know, happen in the ﬁ nal days of the season and give Hannah and her ﬁ nal three picks (one at a time) the opportunity to be alone, really alone, away from microphones and cameras. You’ve got to expect sex happens. Unsurprisingly, Luke, objected, and they had a tiff. Hannah told Luke she’d had sex with another guy in a windmill and Jesus still loves her. Did I mention a big thing she and Luke shared in common is their faith? I was certain even though she had the guts to dump Luke, Hannah would go on to choose the second worst guy left. She did not disap- point. Over her parents’ objections CIRCULATION MANAGER PRODUCTION MANAGER CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Jeremy Feldman John D. Bruijn ADVERTISING SALES MANAGER SYSTEMS MANAGER Sarah Silver- Tecza Carl Earl Skyler Archibald Darren Gooch Joshua Heineman Rain Jordan Katherine Lacaze Eve Marx Cara Mico Esther Moberg and his own family’s open warning, she chose the singer/songwriter, Jed. It was only after he slipped the ring on her ﬁ nger did it come out Jed came on the show for all the wrong reasons, which is to say, not because he was seeking a love that would lead to engagement, but for the exposure it afforded him as a singer. And he has a girlfriend back in Nashville, even though he said she wasn’t really his girlfriend. Hannah broke the engagement. I predicted all along the best guy for Hannah was Tyler Cameron, a movie star gorgeous aspiring model/actor from Florida who, on the show, was described as work- ing in construction. Tyler currently has 1.8 million followers on Insta- gram. The two met again on stage during the “After the Rose” epi- sode only two months after Han- nah dismissed him at the altar just as Tyler was about to get down on one knee. In front of a large stu- dio audience and all of Bachelor Nation (if you watch, you’re auto- matically a member), they agreed to meet for a drink. Next up on my TV watch list is “Bachelor in Paradise.” They never get out of their bathing suits. Stay tuned. PUBLIC MEETINGS Monday, Aug. 12 Seaside City Council, 7 p.m., City Hall, 989 Broadway. Tuesday, Aug. 13 Sunset Empire Park and Recre- ation District, board workshop, 5:15 p.m., Bob Chisholm Commu- nity Center, 1225 Avenue A, Sea- side. Thursday, Aug. 15 Seaside Transportation Advisory Commission, 6 p.m., City Hall, 989 Broadway. Tuesday, Aug. 20 Sunset Empire Park and Recre- ation District Board of Directors, 5:15 p.m., Bob Chisholm Commu- nity Center, 1225 Avenue A, Sea- side. Seaside Planning Commission, work session, 7 p.m., City Hall, 989 Broadway. Seaside School District Board of Directors, 7 p.m., 1801 S. Franklin, Seaside. Wednesday, Aug. 21 Seaside Tourism Advisory Com- mittee, 3 p.m., City Hall, 989 Broad- way. Monday, Aug. 26 Seaside City Council, 7 p.m., City Hall, 989 Broadway. Seaside Signal Letter policy Subscriptions The Seaside Signal is published every other week by EO Media Group, 1555 N. Roosevelt, Seaside, OR 97138. 503-738-5561 seasidesignal.com Copyright © 2019 Seaside Signal. Nothing can be reprinted or copied without consent of the owners. The Seaside Signal welcomes letters to the editor. The deadline is noon Monday prior to publication. Letters must be 400 words or less and must be signed by the author and include a phone number for veriﬁ cation. We also request that submissions be limited to one letter per month. Send to 1555 N. Roosevelt Drive, Seaside, OR 97138, drop them oﬀ at 1555 N. Roosevelt Drive or fax to 503-738-9285, or email rmarx@seasidesignal.com Annually: $40.50 in county • $58.00 in and out of county • e-Edition: only $30.00 POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Seaside Signal, P.O. Box 210, Astoria, OR 97103. Postage Paid at Seaside, OR, 97138 and at additional mailing oﬃ ces. Copyright © 2019 by the Seaside Signal. No portion of this newspaper may be reproduced without written permission. All rights reserved.