August 23, 2000
Dear Everyone:
One of the things that came out of our Family
Gathering in Canby
last month was the decision that “Jeannie” will take possession of the
Phone Booth
currently situated in the corner of Mother’s dining room.
I believe it was also decided that “Alice” would take charge of
the dining table and chairs.
The idea was, if there was some family heirloom, or any other item or
piece(s) of furniture that you wanted to claim before Mother moves to
her new digs, “speak now or forever…”
“Jeannie” wanted the Phone Booth.
For people who may not know about the Phone Booth, a little
history may be in order.
When the family (most of it) was living in
Moss Beach,
California, Mother discovered someone who wanted to sell an antique
phone booth, circa 1930’s or ‘40’s.
(I think it’s circa 1930’s because I once saw an
Ellery Queen
movie on TV, set in the ‘30’s and there was a phone booth, which looked
remarkably like ours, which played a key role in the solving of the
mystery.)
Anyway, Mother decided that an antique phone booth
was just what the Moss Beach house was missing in the décor area and
besides, the seller was willing to deliver it (in an almost equally
antique VW bus)
and even haul it up the stairs.
So then we had this antique phone booth in the corner of the
dining room.
Mother even paid to have a wall-mount phone
installed in the Phone Booth (this was in the days before the
Ma Bell breakup
and all the little
Baby Bells which are currently merging into even bigger than Ma Bell
conglomerates).
Since the Moss Beach house was situated at the end
of the county road and people were fond of parking their cars at the end
of the road, the cars would frequently get stuck in the mud during wet
weather. The owners would
then come to the nearest house (ours) and ask to use the phone to call
for a tow truck. When they
came in, looking for the phone, what they found was an actual Phone
Booth standing in the corner of the dining room.
What they also found, mounted on the wall inside the booth, was
the page from the local directory, listing all the towing services in
the area. It was a Full
Service Phone Booth.
It was also, according to Dad, “Another one of your
mother’s crazy ideas.” Who
ever heard of putting a Phone Booth in the dining room?
Then, one evening, during dinner, the phone in the Phone Booth
rang. It was for one of the
teenagers. The teenager sat
down in the Phone Booth, closed the door and had a private conversation
while the rest of the family enjoyed their dinner in peace.
That’s when “Another one of your mother’s crazy
ideas” became “Another one of Mother’s strokes of genius”.
The Phone Booth has traveled from
California to
Massachusetts
and back to Oregon.
Now “Jeannie” (who has fond memories of long, private
conversations in that booth) needs to get it from Oregon back down to
California. And soon, as
Mother needs to get it out of the house.
But there’s a problem:
Most of the major moving and shipping companies won’t take
“partial shipments” anymore.
So “Jeannie’s” been contacting moving lines in the Portland area (long
distance, of course) and asking for the local sub-contractors, trying to
find someone to crate up the Phone Booth and bring it down to
California. Then she decided
to try the Internet.
Because “Jeannie’s” PC is a tad bit slow, we
decided to try this last Saturday on my PC.
I would have gone right out onto the Web and started searching
using one of the popular Search Engines like
Yahoo,
Excite or
Dogpile.
But “Jeannie” used AOL’s
searching capabilities instead.
I’m quite proud of her.
In a relatively short time, she found a site called “BidYourMove”
(http://www.aaamove.com is the
starting point that we found).
This is a service that let’s you enter all the
pertinent information about the item(s) you want moved and how much
you’re willing to pay for someone to do it for you.
We skipped through all the kitchen, bedroom, living room, etc.
until we got to Miscellaneous and entered the Phone Booth, specifically
mentioning that it has glass doors, since this is important to
professional movers. We also
said we were looking for someone to do the job for $500.
That was Saturday.
By Sunday, the service had sent an email that someone had
countered with an offer to move the Phone Booth for $575.
“Jeannie” has currently revised her bid to $525.
We’re waiting to see what happens next.
By the way, I did finally get over to see
Space
Cowboys, once they fixed the sound system.
Predictable, but pleasant.
The actors,
Clint Eastwood (who also directed),
Tommy Lee Jones,
James Garner and
Donald
Sutherland (in particular) seemed to be enjoying themselves
immensely.
Love, as always
Pete
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