When I was quite young, my father had one of the first telephones in our neighborhood. I remember well the polished old case fastened to the wall. The shiny receiver hung on the side of the box. I was too little to reach the telephone, but used to listen with fascination when my mother used to talk to it. Then I discovered that somewhere inside the wonderful device lived an amazing person - her name was Information Please, and there was nothing she did not know. Information Please could supply anybody\'s number and the correct time. My first personal experience with this genie-in-the-bottle came one day while my mother was visiting a neighbor. Amusing myself at the tool bench in the basement, I whacked my finger with a hammer. The pain was terrible, but there didn\'t seem to be any reason in crying because there was no one home to give sympathy. I walked around the house sucking my throbbing finger, finally arriving at the stairway - The telephone! Quickly I ran for the footstool in the parlor and dragged it to the landing. Climbing up I unhooked the receiver in the parlor and held it to my ear. Information Please I said into the mouthpiece just above my head. A click or two and a small clear voice spoke into my ear. \"Information.\" \"I hurt my finger. . .\" I wailed into the phone. The tears came readily enough now that I had an audience. \"Isn\'t your mother home?\" came the question. \"Nobody\'s home but me.\" I blubbered. \"Are you bleeding?\" \"No,\" I replied. \"I hit my finger with the hammer and it hurts.\" \"Can you open your icebox?\" she asked. I said I could. \"Then chip off a little piece of ice and hold it to your finger.\" After that I called Information Please for everything. I asked her for help with my geography and she told me where Philadelphia was. She helped me with my math, and she told me my pet chipmunk I had caught in the park just the day before would eat fruits and nuts. And there was the time that Petey, our pet canary died. I called Information Please and told her the sad story. She listened, then said the usual things grown-ups say to soothe a child. But I was unconsoled. Why is it that birds should sing so beautifully and bring joy to all families, only to end up as a heap of feathers, feet up on the bottom of a cage? She must have sensed my deep concern, for she said quietly, \"Paul, always remember that there are other worlds to sing in.\" Somehow I felt better. Another day I was on the telephone. \"Information Please.\" \"Information,\" said the now familiar voice. \"How do you spell fix?\" I asked. All this took place in a small town in the pacific Northwest. Then when I was 9 years old, we moved across the country to Boston. I missed my friend very much. Information Please belonged in that old wooden box back home, and I somehow never thought of trying the tall, shiny new phone that sat on the hall table. Yet as I grew into my teens, the memories of those childhood conversations never really left me; often in moments of doubt and perplexity I would recall the serene sense of security I had then. I appreciated now how patient, understanding, and kind she was to have spent her time on a little boy. A few years later, on my way West to college, my plane put down in Seattle. I had about half an hour or so between planes, and I spent 15 minutes or so on the phone with my sister, who lived there now. Then without thinking what I was doing, I dialed my hometown operator and said, \"Information Please.\" Miraculously, I heard again the small, clear voice I knew so well, \"Information.\" I hadn\'t planned this but I heard myself saying, \"Could you tell me please how-to spell fix?\" There was a long pause. Then came the soft spoken answer, \"I guess that your finger must have healed by now. I laughed, \"So it\'s really still you,\" I said. \"I wonder if you have any idea how much you meant to me during that time. \"I wonder, she said, if you know how much your calls meant to me. I never had any children, and I used to look forward to your calls. I told her how often I had thought of her over the years and I asked if I could call her again when I came back to visit my sister. \"Please do, just ask for Sally.\" Just three months later I was back in Seattle. . . A different voice answered Information, and I asked for Sally. \"Are you a friend?\" \"Yes, a very old friend.\" \"Then I\'m sorry to have to tell you. Sally has been working part-time the last few years because she was sick. She died five weeks ago.\" But before I could hang up she said, \"Wait a minute. Did you say your name was Paul?\" \"Yes.\" \"Well, Sally left a message for you. She wrote it down. Here it is I\'ll read it. \'Tell him I still say there are other worlds to sing in. He\'ll know what I mean\'.\" I thanked her and hung up. I did know what Sally meant.