ANdrew8-8000

[Bill O'Neill]

Bill Smith wrote:
> At least  Bill O.  didn't inherit the Merrimack Valley cadence to telephone
> numbers, given by people who go back even further than the exchange name
> days.  
I still "hear" that cadence and recall that it would seem that the 
string of numbers was about 19 long, e.g., 458...9123 verus 
45....8912375649096775849937. Call me nuts but that's would my brain 
would receive.
> It's impossible to get a number the first time when they say it as
> (emphysis on) 45 (emphasis off but pick up speed considerably) 81266 with
> the pause not appearing after the utterance of the three digit  exchange but
> after the first two digits.  

> The host of Telephone Trading Time was supposed
> to repeat the caller's number, some hosts actually figured out what the
> biddies meant to say, but when a certain legendary sports announcer  filled
> in, he read the sports agate page and never listened to the callers beyond
> their first words (caller: yes, today I have a collection of Barbies with
> missing heads and limbs"  LSA:  "Grreat many people are looking for that"
> and back to the Expos-Giants box score), which is working without a net when
> all you've got is a three-second mechanical delay. 

Would that LSA be practicing the Mercier's Car & Van Wash copy for the 
next 13-week run during the Sunday noon all-important WCAP Neyews?

> He'd finally notice they
> had stopped babbling about the treasures they sought to sell,usually after a
> long  morning of trash-picking ("sorry, no used cars, tires or oil
> burners"), look up from the newspaper, and hit the next call.  Fortunately,
> 9:05 - 9:30 is when the Cohens walked from their Car (unit one) to the
> studios, so they never knew.
>   

Ah, but that was the only "null" in their listening cycle. And thanks 
for the reference to the old KCG-492. I recall the ancient Chrysler 
station wagon with the calls and "modern" sixties lightning bolts racing 
to the scene of the crime ready to pounce for sign-on back in the 1 kW 
days of my listening youth.  Local news, what a silly old convention.

Bill O'Neill