Pluggers by Rick McKee for October 30, 2023

Had the same name and phone number as my father so my name was in the phonebook at the age of one.

Eh who knews back then it not good idea to publish publicly name and number. Thanks you spammers.

In that regard, then, every adult is a Cyber Celebrity.

And paid extra to get your name back out again.

“Johnson, Navin R! This is the kind of thing, your name in print, that MAKES people!”

Yeah, you’ll get spammers!

And a listing with a female first name was assumed to be a woman living alone and a potential crime victim. Some women paid to be listed by first initial to avoid this, but it was something of a giveaway. I did know some married couples who were both listed.

Never thought of it that way ….

Yep, things will start happening now, telemarketer calls during dinner and at bedtime.

I miss not getting phone books anymore. If a repairman was needed, just turn to the yellow pages and look through the listings and ads. Going online and doing a search actually takes longer… and I question whether I’m getting the full list of available choices.

Nobody noticed the typo/missing word “THAT REALLY MAKES (ME) SOMEBODY!”

Somethings going to start happening now for sure. Scammer calls, Robo calls, Solicitors calling for everything under the sun, prank calls, etc.

In 1960, the phone book came to my home town [in Nebraska]. Before that, our phone numbers were 3 digits long. And we had an operator. We’d pick up the phone and she [all women] would say, “Number please,” and we would either give the number or just say the name of the person we wanted to talk to — even if it was another 5th grader. That made you feel pretty important, too.

In 1960, our town also put up street signs for the first time and every house got a house number. Streets and houses had always had names and numbers, but we hadn’t needed to know them — we all had PO Boxes at the post office and, again, the postal employees knew everyone so local letters just had to have the person’s name on the envelope.

The post office was also where you found out the local news. [The local paper came out on Thursdays in time to announce Friday specials at the grocery store and weekend activities. And that gave the paper time to develop the pictures taken at the previous weekend events — ball games, weddings, etc.]

It seems strange that we survived without a phone book for so long and now we do so again.

Incidentally, many of those house numbers never got put on a house. When I sold our house in 2005, the house number was still sitting on top of the highboy in the dining room. People still get their mail and local news at the post office and the local paper still comes out on Thursdays.

Ironically this submission is by Al Batt, whose name is quite familiar to anyone that has read Pluggers strips for any length of time.

…and old friends could still “reach out, reach out and touch someone!”

You’re a Plugger if your last name is Batt. (How many, Al?)

Navin Johnson?

My local library has old phonebooks in their reference section, and they have almost every year since about 1950. Besides the white pages, it’s quite interesting to see the listings in the yellow pages. (Not all businesses paid the extra fee to be listed in that part of the phonebook, though.) I would like to see all the old phonebooks in the U.S. scanned and online. I’d pay extra just to access that site.

Taken from the Steve Martin movie The Loser: the new phonebooks are here, I am somebody , the new phonebooks are here

Back in the early 90’s I got a side gig delivering phone books to businesses. I can’t tell you how many times the office clown would go into the Nathan Johnson routine from “The Jerk”. If I ever meet Steve Martin I will thank him. People had a lot of fun with that!

always looked,miss it now

You can also get your name in the book “Who’s Who!” It’s a listing of people who are dumb enough to send money to see their name in a book!

To this day, I would think a phonebook would still be rather handy.

Back when ATT/landline was the only phone service you had to pay extra to have an unlisted number.

what is this “phone book” of which you speak?? /s

It was never a big deal to get your name in the phone book….at least where I lived…

Are phonebooks even a thing now a days?

He’s quoting Steve Martin’s character in the film “The Jerk.”

Visons of Grandeur…. LOL

I just used Google’s new service to get my name and number OFF the Internet. Times change.

Hm, you’re probably a plugger if you remember white pages (and not the web $ite). Free, physical, just appeared on your doorstep.

When I was a mischievous little kid, all that meant was I now had your number to make a phony phone call to!

HE HATES THESE CANS!!!

“…And I’m in the BOOK!”

My immediate reaction was to unlist it.

You’re a plugger if you remember the white pages

Problem with no phone books – what do small children sit on to reach the table to eat when visiting relatives who do not have children and a high chair/booster seat?

Now you want your name to be unlisted.