The number on my cell showed the call was from Rochester, New York. Of course, I didn’t answer it. My default assumptions with unknown calls are that they are probably robocalls and they likely are not from the number I am reading. I also assume no useful communication will result. Seconds later I get a voice mail “Ping.” What do you know? Turns out this is useful communication—a request to play a musical gig.
The voice on the phone belonged to Janet from Tri Kappa. She wondered if Becky and I would once again volunteer to play music at the sorority’s Spring Fete at the Brown County Health and Living Center. Of course we would. It is always great fun.
After we ironed out the details, I apologized for not initially answering her call. “Oh, understood,” she said. “I do the same thing.” Then she explained when she moved to Indiana she stayed with her New York number because she was used to it. She likes it because it reads the same forwards and backwards, a palindrome. It’s easy to remember.
I get that about having an affinity for certain numbers. If you add an extra digit my cell number is my birthday. For me, it is easier to remember numbers if I can find a pattern, a mnemonic trick. Once you get a good number in your life, it’s hard to leave it. A good number becomes part of you.
I have a similar feeling about Social Security numbers. Our SS numbers, in some ways, define who we are. They prove we exist. I remember when I was a kid and got my Social Security card in the mail. This was the Old Days when babies didn’t get an SS number at birth. I knew my new number was a big deal, a major move toward adulthood. Just as earlier in my life Mom had me learn our home telephone number that started “TUcker 1…,” she knew I would need to memorize this new number.
I started right away. It didn’t take too long partly because I was used to memorization. Seems like I was always being required to memorize stuff at school. I had to memorize the books of the Bible and some verses during confirmation classes. Memorization was a typical learning strategy in the Old Days.
I’m not saying there is a cause and effect, but the need to memorize has changed since technology has become more pervasive in our lives. Now that everyone carries around computers, phone numbers don’t need to be memorized. I used to carry around in my head numbers of family, friends and entities that were important. When that list of numbers got too cluttered, I carried a paper in my wallet on which I would occasionally scribble a new number. Now people don’t memorized anyone’s numbers; they rely on their cell.
There was a time when signing with a different mobile carrier and/or getting a new device meant getting a new number. The FCC now requires that carriers must work with you to keep your old number. There are some exceptions but, mostly, the government says: if you like your number, you can keep your number. Of course, back in the Old Days the government used to assure citizens that Social Security numbers were not to be used for identification purposes.
In our complicated, intertwined and highly technological modern world, the necessity for people to be identified with numbers is understandable. And yet, I still carry around a wariness, a resistance to being thought of as a number. That probably comes from growing up in the 1960s independent, get-back-to-the-land, don’t-trust-the-man hippie spirit of the times. You know: The Old Days.
