ON THE BOULEVARD: A real operator and a disappointed writer

HELLO, OPERATOR: Local attorney Pat Fitzgibbons’ recent reminiscence about the state of telephone technology in Las Vegas back in the 1950s was a tale of party lines and long waits for service. The note elicited this response from longtime reader Nancy.

She writes, “I was laughing out loud while reading your column this morning about your contact with Pat Fitzgibbons. He could remember when he needed an operator to make a telephone call. I was one of those telephone operators.

“We had two-, three- and some four-digit numbers. The other exciting thing about everybody placing calls through operators was that we knew everybody's business in the entire town. Such memories I have. I'm 67 years old. Our little town was the next-to-last town in New Mexico to finally get dial phones.”

Sounds like Nancy is a source I need to cultivate.

How about it, operator?

FACEBOOK FOG: Gushing national media coverage to the contrary, not everyone is enamored of Facebook these days. Consider longtime reader David Wright one of them.

Wright, of Alpharetta, Ga., is displeased with the new Review-Journal policy that makes it necessary for those wishing to respond to online articles to do so via their Facebook account. But what, he asks, if you don’t want to use Facebook?

“I have written to you several times over the years that I have read the Review Journal online. We actually lived in Las Vegas from 2003 until 2007 and are planning on moving back as soon as we sell out home in Atlanta, Ga.

“In the past I have been able to input comments on stories in the newspaper but now find that I have to become registered by opening an account on Facebook. I had an account on Facebook for a few years and finally, after a very lengthy process, was able to close it due to some problems I had incurred from having the account. I had put minimal information on my account in an effort to minimize exposure on line but even that failed.

“My chief complaint in contacting you is to state to the newspaper that I will be making no more comments to it (which they may cheer at) as I refuse to become entangled with Facebook ever again. I suspect that I am not alone in this feeling! I suspect that there is some inducement from Facebook to get the newspaper "locked into Facebook" but I also believe it shuts the paper off from many people as well.

“PS: Sorry to give the complaint to you but could not figure out how to get an e-mail to the newspaper without going through Facebook!”