Happy we've lost the challenge of a long-distance call

As we plunge into the hustle and bustle of holiday events and the annual procuring of gifts, I’m happy to remind you of one issue you don’t need to fret about: The challenge of successfully completing a long-distance call on Christmas Day.

Drop back a few decades (OK, maybe several decades) and it was a different story.

In December of 1965, in fact, Mountain States Telephone Company took the precaution of asking the Portales News-Tribune to share the concern with its readers, which it did in a front-page story headlined, “Callers Warned of ‘Phone Rush’ on Christmas Day.”

Carol Faris, the local manager for Mountain States, told the paper that the company was expecting an “extremely heavy volume of long-distance calls during the Christmas weekend,” and that spelled nothing but trouble for the local system.

The article reminded me yet again of how telephoning has changed in my lifetime.

In the 1960s, our local telephone exchanges were identified by a name “spelled” in part from the numbers of the prefix used there.

In the Milnesand exchange, for example, where phone numbers still begin with 675, the exchange was OR-5 or “Orchard -5.” Portales’ numbers all began with 356 then. Spelled on a phone, it was ELM. Elida — where numbers began with 274 — was BR-4 or “Bridge-4.”

Phone companies made a chunk of their change from long distance calls, so the rates for dialing those out-of-area connections were significantly heftier during most daylight hours Monday through Friday.

They were cheaper on weekends and late at night. (By late at night, I mean way after bedtime for folks in an agricultural community.)

If and when a long-distance call happened, it was rarely a spontaneous thing at our house. I remember strict rules saving that luxury for weekends and, yes, holidays.

That was part of why Carol Faris was issuing a preemptive alert.

“We are preparing in every way we can to handle as many calls as possible,” Faris told the News-Tribune, “but I know many callers will be disappointed. Christmas is one of two days each year we don’t solicit business. The other is Mother’s Day. Everyone wants to call then.”

Faris explained that “long distance telephone equipment is designed to handle the calling load expected 362 days a year rather than the peak volumes experienced twice a year,” and noted that “to equip for these two peak calling days would be unwise, because it would mean having a tremendous investment in facilities that could not be used for all the other days of the year.”The article contained another reminder of how much this system has changed in my lifetime. We often had an operator place long distance calls back in the day — a real live human operator — and it wasn’t necessary to know the actual phone number, just the name and the town.

Faris suggested to speed things up for the 1965 holiday calls, it would be prudent “whenever possible” to have the area code and telephone number ready to tell the operator.

He anticipated a high volume of folks lining up to take advantage of the special rate of “90 cents or less” for a “three-minute station-to-station call from Portales to anyplace in the continental United States, except Alaska.”

“There will be many delays because everyone will be trying to take advantage of the low charges at the same time,” Faris cautioned. “So, if you want to be sure of completion of your call, place it the day before Christmas or New Year’s or the days after.”

Kinda gives you a whole new appreciation for that calling plan on the cell phone in your pocket, doesn’t it?

Betty Williamson remains happily rooted in Orchard-5. Reach her at:

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