What's Cooking?

Macon Traditions 

Terri hunter photo
Avatar photo

Terri Hunter

I have had a deep, personal relationship with telephones almost all of my life. My mama was an operator saying, “Number, please,” from the time I was born until I was eight or nine years old. She worked what was called a “switchboard”: which was situated upstairs in an office on Main Street right past the courthouse. I think four or five operators worked each day shift, but I’m not sure.

We lived in town and always had what was called a private line. I knew if I played on the phone, calling and hanging up, or generally being an aggravation, I might hear my own mother say, “Terri, get off the phone.” Honestly, those operators stuck together and listened in and tattled on offspring. I felt quite stifled, and it limited my ability to prank call anyone.

In those simpler times, it was great fun to call a grocery store and ask, “Do you have Prince Albert in a can?” If the answer was in the affirmative, the caller was supposed to say, “Let him out or he will suffocate” before hanging up. (Prince Albert was a brand of tobacco folks used to roll their own cigarettes a way long time ago.) 

Because there was no caller ID, unless your mama was an operator, kids got away with such foolishness. Do you see what a predicament I was in?

Then telephones became dial-ups, and the office moved to Sylva. Since my mama didn’t have a car or a license to drive, she went to work at the A&P, which leads me to wonder if she ever was questioned about Prince Albert’s condition.

When I was 10, my family and I moved to a house on Lake Emory Road, and I found I had a new telephone territory – the party line. A party line was when several accounts were on the same line, so if you picked up the phone and heard someone speaking you were supposed to apologize, hang up, and wait until that conversation was over before making your own call. But, just like a spy, listening in on the conversation was a possibility. 

Now, why would a body get a hoot out of listening to old ladies discuss recipes and gossip about unknown people? I have no answer, but I really did seem to enjoy it. It required being very quiet and stealthily picking up the receiver so no sound was made. I found that turning the dial just a little while picking it up worked.

But now, most folks have phones close by at all times. I, however, often think of what’s been lost: phone books, the ability to slam down a receiver, talking in code so eavesdropping parents have no idea what’s being said, and the grandest of all — being unreachable by phone. 

My mama, the telephone, and I have one last connection. She was in the hospital in Asheville, and I was in the room with her. As I leaned over her bed, my cell phone rang. She said, “Terri, answer that phone,” and those were the last words she ever said to me. I cannot for the life of me think of a more profound statement.