<<OFF TOPIC>> A unique find

[Elwood Doss, Jr.]

Hey Rob,
On my daughter's Senior Voice Recital at the University of Tennessee at Martin, she and I performed Gian Carlo Menotti's "The Telephone" for her second half performance.   I dyed my hair brown (from it's normally frosty gray color) and sang the opera about a young man who goes to his girl friend's home to propose.  He's in a hurry because he's got to catch a train, but is thwarted on every hand by his girl friend's telephone.  He sings an aria where he talks about this two headed monster with miles and miles of umbilical cord....  He finally leaves while she is on the phone, answering yet another call.  Then, at the train station, he calls HER on her TELEPHONE and proposes.  We moved in a telephone booth for me to call from.  When the proscenium curtain opened up revealing the telephone booth, you should have heard the crowd!  It was a hoot!

We had to go to Millington, TN, near Memphis (Martin is in extreme Northwest Tennessee) to pick it up and deliver it after the recital.  They are hard to find.  I would not have located it if my wife's brother isn't the manager of a telephone cooperative.

Sorry folks, I couldn't resist telling this story of my family's experience with a telephone booth!

Joy!
Elwood Doss, Jr.



----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Robert Goodale" <rrg@unlv.edu>
To: <pianotech@ptg.org>
Sent: Wednesday, September 25, 2002 1:47 PM
Subject: <<OFF TOPIC>> A unique find


<<OFF TOPIC>>

The piano business will lead to some of the most bizarre finds sometimes.  But then again piano technicians are bizarre finds.

A few weeks ago Alan Meyer and I were walking across the UNLV campus pulling a dolly and skid board after moving an Baldwin Hamilton into the student union for an event.  Nearing the music building we stopped in our tracks when we noticed an old phone booth sitting in a fenced area where the art department does their business.  This is the old kind that pretty much disappeared in the 1980s with the bi-fold doors and the light that comes on.  Actually thanks to the cell phone nearly all pay phones have vanished now.  The top has TELEPHONE written on it which lights up behind the glass on the top.  An example is here only it is red instead of blue:
http://www.payphonesdirect.com/wesel.html

Half realizing it I said out loud, "hey that's cool, wouldn't it be fun to own that".  An art department professor was near by and enthusiastically responded "PLEASE, come and get it!"  It seems that some maintenance people abandoned it there and it was in their way.  For unknown reasons I said I would take it.  He gave me his name and told me to call back a few weeks after school started.  Well I did and he said to come over and get it.  Last evening Alan and I returned with a piano dolly and proceeded to load it up in my pick-up and away I went with my new found treasure.  This morning I unloaded it behind the house and examined it closer.  It is actually in remarkably good shape.  The last remaining booths of this type that I have seen, (and it has been quite a while), have the doors missing, broken glass, the light is missing, profanity scratched into it everywhere, etc.  This booth has none of that, it just needs a good hose down and scrubbing.  It is in pristine condition for what could probably now be classified as an antique.

Okay, now the big question... what am I going to do with it?  Truthfully I don't quite know but it is kind of cool.  I jokingly told Alan that we could use it as the spray booth for our new shop.  His reply was that I should install it in the bathroom and put a shower head in it!  (actually kind of a novel idea!)  I'll probably end up putting it in my living room after I get it cleaned up.  I need to locate an old pay phone to install in it.  An older model would be the most nostalgic but I haven't found anything less than upward of $250.00.  maybe there's a fixer upper out there somewhere, there must be tens of thousands of them out there that were retired over the decades.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to make a phone call.

Rob Goodale, RPT
Las Vegas, NV