The Telephone Story

The first 9 years of my life were spent at 237 North Broadway, Lebanon, Ohio.  It was a sweet little house that still stands on the main drag of Lebanon.  One of my early memories is of a telephone lamp that was always a part of our home furnishings, from day one. 

I don’t know the back story on the lamp, but I assume it was maybe the first telephone my parents had and as time moved on, Dad, always the handyman, converted it into a lamp.

The lamp moved with us from Ohio to Pinellas Park, Florida in 1957.  It was always there.  Something I remember playing with, as any kid would since it had a cool mechanism for turning on and off.  Lift the receiver off the base of the phone and the light turned on.  Put the receiver back in place and the lamp turned off.  Fun toy for a kid, even if Mom did yell at you every time you touched it. 

So, years passed, and the lamp became less and less a toy and more of just a piece of furnishing.  Nancy Richey came into my life and Mom and Dad loved her like a second daughter.  We graduated high school, Nancy married Ken, they went to Virginia to serve in the Navy and about 2 years later they returned to Florida with their young son.

Upon their return they needed some help.  Since my family owned a grocery store, Nancy turned to them, and as any parent would do, Mom and Dad stepped up.  Along with a few other items, Mom passed the lamp to Nancy to help furnish an apartment.

The first time I visited from Ohio I noticed the lamp and recognized it immediately.  Nancy told me the story of their return and how Mom and Dad pitched in with some help.  Nan promised that she would return the lamp to me at some future date.

More years passed and every time I visited Nan and Ken, in any house where they lived, the lamp was always present.  Their kids, now a family of 3 had the same experience as me, playing with the lamp as they grew up.  Then one day the lamp was not around.  I asked Nan about it and she said it had disappeared.  I was heartbroken as I always expected to one day have the lamp returned. 

So fast forward to April 2020, Nan passes unexpectedly and her youngest son, Jonathan calls to let me know of her passing.  We talked several times over the next week and somehow over the course of those conversations the subject of the lamp came up.  Jonathan remembered the lamp and promised to keep an eye open for it.

A week or so later he called, letting me know the lamp had been discovered.  He shipped it to me and I was so thrilled to have it back.  It came back in rather rough condition, but it was all there.  I took the lamp to Wiebold Studios to see if they could recondition it.  They could!!

Old phone before reconditioning

Today I picked up the lamp.  It is gorgeous!!  As I was checking out I found a company name I had not noticed before, it was a Kellogg Phone.  The employee at Wiebold’s did a quick Google search and found that the phone is a 1901 Candlestick Phone, which now leads me to believe that it could have been a grandparent’s phone, since Mom and Dad were born in 1917 and 1920. 

So, I called Jonathan and told him the great news. He was pleased, and told stories of how he played with the phone as a kid and when they found the phone at Nan’s house Jonathan’s older brother, Kenny, also remembered playing with the phone. 

What Jonathan doesn’t know is that I plan to return the phone to him at some point in time.  If nothing else, through my Will.  I’m hoping that the long tradition of kids in the Hallsted and Richey families playing with that phone/lamp will continue in to the far distant future!!!

Reconditioned phone lamp

Happy Father's Day

Every year Father’s Day comes around and since November 15, 2006 its been a day that brings back soooo many memories.  This year, rather than say, “Miss you Dad.” I thought I would reminisce a bit, thinking back through our glorious memories, cause my Dad, just like your Dad, was really, really special.

•  My very earliest memory of Dad is fishing along the banks of the Little Miami River in Warren County, Ohio.  Jim and I were playing chase and I managed to slip on a steep slope and fall into the river.  I was probably 4 or 5 years old.  My foot caught on a tree root as I fell in and kept me trapped under water.  I could clearly see, with my eyes open under water, Dad racing toward me, throwing his fishing pole away and grabbing me by my head to pull me up for a breath.

•  Dad was multitasked when it came to earning a living.  Among other things I have memories of going to an old barn he rented outside of Lebanon.  That is where he constructed custom built kitchen cabinets.  Back in those days the counter top of choice was Formica.  Brother Jim and I would go out and help spread the glue that adhered the Formica to the counter top.  I still remember the smell of that glue.

•  Both Mom and Dad were from farming families.  We would go out to the Poff Family Farm in Red Lion, Ohio and Dad hunted rats in the corn cribs and barn.  Those poor rats never had a chance.

•  I remember moving to Florida in August 1957.  It was a 1954 Studebaker Station Wagon pulling a UHaul trailer with all our earthly goods.  Dad was the only driver in the family so cousin David came along to help with the driving.  We moved into a house outside of Pinellas Park that had a roof, windows and outside walls, but no interior walls.  He put blankets up around the stud work of the bathroom so we could have privacy. 

•  As we finished the house, we had to put insulation up in the roof.  It was that pink fiberglass stuff that itched like crazy when you got it on your skin.  The four of us would work on the insulation until late in the evening, then head out to Gandy Bridge to take a swim in the Bay and wash the itches away. 

• Then there was the day that he had the first of his heart attacks.  It was tough times for the family.  He was our rock and at the time the outlook was not good for him.  But he pulled through.

• There was the year, shortly after high school graduation when I wanted to join the Navy and at that time you had to have your ‘Father’s’ permission to join if you were under 21 years old.  Dad said “Absolutely not…no daughter of mine is joining the military!!”  Six months later I was so grateful he held his ground.

•   In 1979 the two of us took off for a 3-month trip to Alaska.  As close as we were as father and daughter, that trip was almost our undoing.  Dad was a pretty straight up male chauvinist traveling with his daughter who was pretty much women’s lib.  Oh the battles that were waged!!  Six months after our return I was still not talking to him.

• Hallsted reunions were held every odd numbered year and along with his brothers and sisters the entire gang would gather in West Virginia, or Kentucky or North Carolina or Ohio or Florida, etc., etc.  Early on there were volleyball games and baseball games and rafting, etc, etc.  Activities changed as the crowd grew older, but always and forever, he was in the middle of it all. 

 There are so many more memories, many more than I can put down in writing, but I’ll just leave it to say that he was our rock, he was always there, no matter what, and he will always be missed. 

Happy Father’s Day Pop!!

Me and Wilber McGee

So…..like many other people I know, my head is spinning between, COVID19, racial tensions, politics, etc, etc, etc.  My head and my heart grow weary.  But, what prompts me to write today is that the racial tensions have moved front and center into the little town of Bethel, Ohio.

Bethel, Ohio is a farming community of about 2800 people.  One young woman, whom we happen to know, has brought the BLM movement to the community by organizing peaceful protests to Main Street…with a total of 2 stop lights and some boarded up business windows of businesses long gone.  When the word got out, the “Outsiders” showed up with their hateful rhetoric and AR-15s.  The police were totally out weaponized.  Thankfully, to date they have kept things peaceful.

But the activities have pushed me to sit down at the computer.  

As I have aged I have definitely become more of a pessimistic.  I am pessimistic regarding several topics: climate change (all the evidence we need is right before our eyes), the future of our American democracy (we are falling apart, piece by piece), my physical aging (this is no fun), and of course racial inequality.

I can’t say that I am an activist in this or for that matter, any regard.  And I do admit that to the extent that my personal wisdom allows, I acknowledge my white privilege.  My eyes were opened many, many years ago by a wonderful woman named Wilber McGee (her Dad really, really wanted a boy!)  

Wilber and I were coworkers at Ohio National Life Insurance back in the late ‘60s.  From the moment we met there was a connection.  And of course, for the purposes of this writing, she was black.  

As it turned out Wilber was married with a young child.  She had issues getting to work as someone needed to get her child on the bus to school at the same time that she needed to head to work.  And, as we got to know each other I learned that she was directly on my way to work.  So I offered to pick her up everyday.  She agreed to accept as long as they could provide me breakfast in their home everyday.  Deal made!!

So as weeks passed our friendship grew more solid.  She was a delightfully funny, caring, compassionate person.  She had strong family values and a deep abiding religious faith.  Turned out her husband was a minister.

One day we were working side by side at a large conference table assembling a mailing when our conversation took a more serious turn.  I don’t remember the actual course of the conversation, but at some point Wilber said to me, “Sue, you don’t know what I’d give to be a white person.”  “You don’t mean that, Wilbur!” was my reply.  She looked at me dead on and said, “You will never understand.”

In that moment my life, my understanding, made a dramatic shift.  I knew instantly that I would never understand.  But a window had been opened.  

Along with my friendship with Wilber, over the years I have had the pleasure of working in different environments that were very inclusive.  At the time of my retirement that was at Johnson and Johnson which included employees at all level of the operations of all colors, creeds, etc., etc. So I had exposure to many different kinds of people throughout my life.  

Which brings me to current day.  A few months ago I read a book titled A Brief History of Everyone Who Ever Lived: The Stories in Our Genes by Adam Rutherford.  Some of the book was over my head, but I did understand most of it.  One sentence in the book has really stuck with me; and I paraphrase – White people have as much of a chance of sharing as much DNA of a black person as they do with a white.  What originally created the difference in skin color was that over time, as homo sapiens migrated out of Africa (which is where we ALL came from) the further we moved away from the equator the lighter our skin became.  Darker skin pigmentation was a protection against the extreme sun exposure of living near the equator.  

As a result of this, what I came to understand is that it makes as much sense to discriminate based on skin color as it does to discriminate against people with blue eyes or red hair!!! 

What is sad for me is that while I have this understanding, I am also very pessimistic that the racial tensions of our country will ever subside.  When I think about the history of racial bias in this country, I think about the fact that the first slave ship arrived on the shores of North America in 1619.  It was 246 years of slavery until the Emancipation Proclamation was issued by President Lincoln in 1863.  And even then the slave situation did not change that much very quickly.   Since 1863 one hundred fifty-seven years have passed and look what we still have going on today.

My premise is that you can make all the laws and conduct all the protests you want, but it will not change the ‘heart’ of racial hatred.  Those people we see on TV screaming at each other … the screaming will change nothing.  People who need something to hate will find something to hate, and in this country it is hating people for the color of their skin.  

I don’t even pretend to know the answers.  I just wish every white person could have had a ‘Wilber McGee’ in their lives.