ALPINE 6-3959: THE PHONE NUMBER THAT MEANT HOME

In several previous essays I have written that schools were my safe space since I moved around so much. Those declarations are only part of the story. The full story is that the house of my paternal grandparents, whom I lovingly called Grandpa and Grandma, was my ultimate safe space in that while schools changed they lived in the same house during my childhood, youth, and young adulthood years for about four decades from the end of World War ll until the late 1980s. Their house became an anchor for me.

A fuller story on my Grandpa and Grandma appears in the essay “The Fighting Marlows” that appeared in my first book Javelin Joe’s Reflections. The story here will begin during World War II, about eight years before my birth. Oklahoma had been hit hard during the Great Depression and Dust Bowl. Its economy tanked and jobs were scarce. But in 1942 the American industries cranked up for the war effort and jobs became plentiful for workers in the US homefront. My grandparents left my Dad in Dallas with Auni Billie and Uncle Dan and they traveled west by train to the San Francisco Bay area to build Liberty Ships for the US Merchant Marine.

After the war ended Grandpa and Grandma picked up my Dad in Texas and returned to northeastern Oklahoma. This time they had a house built in the extreme northwest corner of Delaware County and Grandpa entered the new family business—liquor. In fact, farming and liquor seemed to be the only professions the Marlows engaged in following the war. My grandparents also had a “beer joint” built less than 300 feet from their new home called Lake Junction Inn. Their establishment had a desirable location—on US 66 10 miles from Vinita, 5 miles from Afton, and about 7 miles from Grand Lake. The lake separated their small enclave from the rest of Delaware County, which generally protected him from the corrupt county sheriff. (When I attended OU, Delaware County had been declared the most corrupt of Oklahoma’s 77 counties.)

Their location, although good for business, caused initial confusion on my part. Residence in rural Delaware County, Post Office and schools in Afton (Ottawa County), and in Vinita (Craig County) Grandpa and Grandma did their grocery shopping, visited Doctor Darrough for health reasons, did their banking, and had their telephone service. (I suspect they avoided Afton as much as possible because many of the residents there were a bit wary when it came to their liquid business.)

My grandparents’ telephone had always fascinated me. Their phone would not be recognizable by today’s consumers. It was black wired in the house with a rotary dial and served only one function—to talk with other people. Their assigned number was ALpine 6-3959—one dialed only the AL and then the numbers to reach the Marlow household and also to reach another family. They had a “party line” shared with one other household!

Despite my initial confusion over the geography and services sought associated with my grandparents’ house and the now antiquated phone system, their telephone number ALpine 6-3959 came to represent the warmth and security only associated with a home. From the heat from the floor grates to dispel winter cold to outstretched arms and hugs from my Grandpa and Grandma, their house was indeed a home where love was expressed and acted upon. Although their phone number no longer exists, its echo still calls me home.