’Number, Please?’

Those of us ‘of an age’ can remember that phrase from every time we wanted to make a phone call.
If you lived in a small town as I did, you often didn’t even have to say the number. You could simply say, ‘Aunt Matilda, please,’ and you would be connected to her phone, because the folks at ‘Central’ knew your voice (even if you were calling from another phone).

In St. Peter’s, when I was growing up, Jesse and Jack Adams were the great people you spoke to at ‘Central’ when placing a call. Jack could often show a quick wit, by commenting, ‘My, you look well today!’ Jesse was the one who called me in Ottawa in 1969 to deliver the sad news that my Mom had passed away.
Over the years, they exchanged many messages across the village and around the world, 24/7, because THEY knew what was going on.
What got me to thinking about numbers was Father Ken’s homily last Sunday. He spoke on the biblical theme that Christ knows his sheep, that he knows us each by name. But, the fact is that in our society, we are no longer known by our name, but by a number.
To illustrate his point, he commented that even members of the Sisters (of Charity) have an identification number. He asked one of the elderly Sisters in the congregation what her number was, to which she replied, ’325.’ Father repeated it, mulled it over for a few seconds, and said, deadpan, ‘That number sounds old!’ (Most of us there remember that Sister celebrated her 100th birthday last August!!)
We ARE ruled by numbers: when we are born, we are assigned a Social Insurance Number (S-I-N) which is to be included on EVERY contact with our national government. Even after we die, a final income tax return is filed on our behalf to CRA!
Our health card, library card (and even the books available there), drivers license, ID cards, credit cards, utility bills and each grocery item we buy at the supermarket, contain a digital code, either visible or magnetic. This computer I am writing on lives and dies by binary codes.
Perhaps, Dear Reader, it’s too late to abandon numbers and go back to names, but I relate a story of a brave attempt:
Back in the early 1990s, our nephew, who lived in Toronto but had spent most of his summers in Halifax, arrived to take his Grade 10 at Queen Elizabeth High School. He was quiet and soft-spoken, but was soon able to make friends quite easily.
His chums, when relating stories about the places they’d visited and the people they met, would often refer to a guy as, ‘Buddy.’ Many times each day he would hear this term and (remember, he was from Toronto) had no idea who they were talking about.
So, one day, he decided to ramp up his courage; he went over and asked one of his chums, ‘Who’s Buddy?’
When the laughter died down, it was explained to him that ‘Buddy’ was a generic term, originating in Cape Breton (or Newfoundland?), used to identify someone whose name you hadn’t learned yet, didn’t want to learn, or didn’t remember.
He sheepishly related that story to us at home that same evening, and has never been allowed to forget it!