Cell phones

Remember the days when we never even thought about these things???

One of my earliest memories is going to the big, old school house building in Kipnuk to wait for a phone call by the only phone there was in Kipnuk. And you had the option of doing a collect call, where the other person you're talking to pays for the call, or the "time and charge" call where you talked for however long you wanted to talk and then a few minutes after you hung up, the operator would call back and tell you how much you had to pay for the conversation you just had. There was a phone operator sitting at the phone waiting for the phone to ring, and they would announce over the CB radio, and say something like "Ella, you're going to get a call from so and so in 10 minutes, please come to the old school building to take your call." Or if you wanted to make a call your self, telling the phone person you're doing a time and charge call (or collect).

I once got such a call from Takuskuaq, one of my bestest childhood friends, right after her and her 3 brothers and her mom and dad moved to Kwigillingok. She is about 2 -3 yrs older than me and we shared chicken pox, tea (coffee, water or milk), roaming in the tundra, and so much laughter together. I missed her if we didn't see eachother during the day and when we were sick, we'd even go see eachother and once, she walked me home half way even when she was sick with a blanket wrapped around her because we wanted to see eachother so much.

I remember that they had a sailboat that hung off the ceiling that belonged to her dad. Her mom made us matching crocheted headbands one time and it was so neat to wear the matching things together.

They lived in a house in Kipnuk that they sold to Joe Paul which now houses one of Nallaq's kids. At one time, it was a store called the "Cracker Jack Cabin". Our favorite teen hangout in nowhere Alaska. There was a jukebox in there, where for a quarter you got to pick 4 songs and our favorite was "Dream Dream Dream" by the Righteous Brothers. And us trying to show off our alto voices and showing off that we could harmonize.

I can't remember what Takuss and I talked about that time, but that we missed eachother and she told me that little Kwiggers had their faces against their windows trying to look inside their house and seeing who was in there. She wanted me to call her collect, but I never had to courage to go up to the stern phone operator to say I wanted to make such a call. We continued our friendship through letters for a long time, way into my high school years. They had moved away when I was in 2nd or 3rd grade.

So that is my perspective of those long ago days and being able to instantly be in phone contact with anybody these days.....