Internets Killed the Phone Book

 Maybe you read recently, as I did, that white-paged residential phone directories are going the way of land-lines and rotary dials.

Yellow-paged business directories will continue, and they still make money, evidently. But you have to wonder how long even those will be printed. Phone books are on their way to history's recycling bin. 

It makes sense. Many of us look up phone numbers online, which is especially convenient on a smart phone. Search, click, connect.

When I started in this newspaper biz, finding a phone number could be a tough job. The phone book you needed somehow disappeared from the newsroom stack. A call todirectory assistance was often a dead end. We printed many more  "could not be reached for comment" lines in those days.

On the plus side, it was easier to be left alone.

Pitching phone books is progress. But it's also a farewell to a fascinating relic of our civilization.

On my desk, there's a copy of the 1972 Winnebago Cooperative Telephone Association directory. The numbers listed covered a chunk of territory in North Central Iowa near and along the Minnesota border.

My mom kept stacks of telephone books. They were piled by the phone and stuffed into a cupboard. After she died in April, my dad set out to toss most of them. I retrieved one from the recycling pile.

My parents' old home number is listed under Crystal Lake, and my grandparents are listed under Grafton. It's sort of comforting to see them listed. Makes me want to call and see who answers.

I did try a reverse look-up, but my parents old number is unlisted. I could pay $4.99 to find out more, but I think I can live  not knowing.

The book itself, its cover long ago lost, is pretty beat up and covered in scribbles, many in my mother's handwritting. Numbers and dates and reminders with a significance long forgotten.

Inside, I found underlined numbers for our old dentist in Britt and for the joint in Titonka where my mom used to get her hair done.

Other shards of the past are tucked among the pages. There's a business card from a guy who sold my parents a big, white 1981 Bonneville, the first car I ever drove, and dented. There's an invoice from Montgomery Ward for a Dallas Cowboy's practice jersey, circa Tony Dorsett.

There's a calendar page from August 1976, the month I turned 6. I found some old lottery tickets, a news clipping about baby names and a J.C. Penney's receipt for 26 cents. Stuck in among the yellow pages is a piece of paper where mome wrote the size, color and order numbers for three sweaters she bought. Likely before some Christmas past.

I like looking through the old yellow page ads, including items from the phone company urging us to buy a convenient extension phone line and to use the area code when dialing long distance. "It's faster." Just wait until 4G.

The picture posted above illustrates the unfortunate/funny fact that "rendering" and "restaurants" are in close alphabetical proximity. How do you think the owners of the Country House, "Where something good is cooking,"  appreciated being slapped down next to "Dead Stock?"

Now, it's the phone book that looks to be dead stock. I'll hang on to this one, in the interest of history.