FYI: PHONE BOOTH IN DESERT

FYI

The sun is setting and the desert begins to cool

The sand and cactus reign supreme alongside a

bulky man-made metal object that occasionally

interrupts the desert melody with a jarring

Brring...Brrinng...Brrrinnng!

An old phone booth.

Left.

Almost

forgotten.

In the desert.

If you call sometimes

someone even answers.

This is an anomaly in the world of cell and cyber.

Some people have heard about the Phone Booth in the Mojave desert.

There was even a book written about it.

"Adventures with the Mojave Phone Booth." not widely circulated but there nevertheless. ( A good read by Godfrey "Doc" Daniels)

I still have the phone number for the Phone Booth of the Mojave in my contact list. It follows me inside all the cell phones I have ever owned...and every once in a while I call it.

In the 1970s those large ubiquitous things made of metal and glass and having substantial telephones inside- with satisfying large metal buttons you could push to dial-began to disappear.

If you had a dime you could call anyone.

You could tell the little operator voice to reverse the charges.

You could look up a number in a strange city using the heavy phone book bolted by a chain with a metal spine and dangling below the phone itself.

You could close the sliding bi-fold door and be alone in the phone chamber of the booth and make a call that only you could hear. Swoosh...click....then insert your dime...hear it clang and fall into a pile of coins inside the bottom of the phone behind a shiny polished plate with a keyhole.

Someone had a key once upon a time.

Long after most of the phone booths everywhere had been removed, destroyed, hauled off , become obsolete.

This phone booth in the desert stood. You could still make a call if you found yourself stranded there in the middle of the Mojave desert or if you just wanted to talk to someone.

Voices in the desert to break the silence of the cooling night.

Ironically the Phone booth in the Mojave, had a friend nearby- it was almost under the shade of an ancient Joshua tree, one of the longest-living trees on the planet. Two old things standing beside one another. (

In 1997 Godfrey Daniels made a website and published the phone booth's number. That started an incredible phenomenon- people from all the world would call the phone booth and other people, perfect strangers would simultaneously be there at the phone booth in the Mojave - having made the trek for the express purpose of : answering the phone when it rang to talk to whoever was on the other end!

When I first heard of the phone booth in the Mojave I called the number too. A phone pilgrim answered. That was about 22 years ago. We said hello talked a minute and hung up. It was nice knowing it was there.

I called again a few years later and could hear a faint conversation but they couldn't hear me. Strange but there was the that number on my contacts list.

Fast forward mid-apocalyptic-pandemic times and I was scrolling through my contact list and saw the MOJAVE DESERT PHONE BOOTH number. I called yesterday and then wrote this today! I thought more people should know. It's fascinating.

May 17th 2000 the Phone booth of the Mojave was torn down.

What remains is the concrete slab.

And some adoring fans must have put up the ornate headstone-- if it's still there.

But the number was resurrected and you can call it today and it takes you to a recording that says you are on a conference call and to dial any number between 1 and 9. Each number will take you to a different room. Sometimes someone answers and you can chat. The rest you will have to discover on your own. It's part mystery part legend part of the past.

Here's the number : 760-733-9969

FYI: now you know.