Details, Details, Details
So I've got Stella in Park Rapids. It's 1959, December. She's 16 and pregnant. No one knows she's there except Jeanine (the woman who's sheltering her) and Mrs. G. (the woman who brought her there).
Then something happens. Now she doesn't trust either one. She's ready to flee, fly, take a powder. She whips out her cell...she whips out her credit card...she fires up her SUV...okay, so what the hell DOES she do?
(Can you tell that I'm blogging because I don't know the answer?!)
We talked this week about rules for zombies and vampires and shaghouls (OH MY!). What are the rules for pregnant teenagers in 1959? My mother was 19 and pregnant with me in 1959 but also married and living on a naval base so all she can help me with (as has often been the case in our relationship) are the clothes.
Maybe Stella could simply walk away? My "waning gibbous moon" friend is telling me to get off my keester and do some research. Maybe it was unseasonably warm in north central Minnesota on a December day in 1959 and a long walk would be just the tonic for a teenager. (And if I go this way, I can always ask my intrepid "baby oil and dog dirt" friend to advise me at which mile the blisters will likely appear.)
The bus seem promising, but can she figure out the schedule and round up cash for a ticket?
Finally, I consider having her call Mrs. Donahue.
There is the phone on its own round mahogany table. There is the heavy, black phone perched neatly on the doily. There is the tastefully upholstered overstuffed chair next to the table and the phone, because in 1959 talking on the telephone was still a social pleasantry. You did it in your living room, not in the bathroom or while you were also clipping your toenails.
(June Cleaver rises in my mind and I can see the precise way her hand is gracefully cradling the unwieldy receiver against her pearled ear.)
And when Stella picks up the phone, I realize, it will have to be an operator who helps her. 1959. No direct dialing in a small town like Park Rapids. Will her voice squeak? Will she have the courage to ask for the person she really wants (since you know it can't be Mrs. Donahue)? So far in this story I don't think Stella's asked anyone for help, but now I think that's all about to change. ~ Victoria Tirrel
Then something happens. Now she doesn't trust either one. She's ready to flee, fly, take a powder. She whips out her cell...she whips out her credit card...she fires up her SUV...okay, so what the hell DOES she do?
(Can you tell that I'm blogging because I don't know the answer?!)
We talked this week about rules for zombies and vampires and shaghouls (OH MY!). What are the rules for pregnant teenagers in 1959? My mother was 19 and pregnant with me in 1959 but also married and living on a naval base so all she can help me with (as has often been the case in our relationship) are the clothes.
Maybe Stella could simply walk away? My "waning gibbous moon" friend is telling me to get off my keester and do some research. Maybe it was unseasonably warm in north central Minnesota on a December day in 1959 and a long walk would be just the tonic for a teenager. (And if I go this way, I can always ask my intrepid "baby oil and dog dirt" friend to advise me at which mile the blisters will likely appear.)
The bus seem promising, but can she figure out the schedule and round up cash for a ticket?
Finally, I consider having her call Mrs. Donahue.
There is the phone on its own round mahogany table. There is the heavy, black phone perched neatly on the doily. There is the tastefully upholstered overstuffed chair next to the table and the phone, because in 1959 talking on the telephone was still a social pleasantry. You did it in your living room, not in the bathroom or while you were also clipping your toenails.
(June Cleaver rises in my mind and I can see the precise way her hand is gracefully cradling the unwieldy receiver against her pearled ear.)
And when Stella picks up the phone, I realize, it will have to be an operator who helps her. 1959. No direct dialing in a small town like Park Rapids. Will her voice squeak? Will she have the courage to ask for the person she really wants (since you know it can't be Mrs. Donahue)? So far in this story I don't think Stella's asked anyone for help, but now I think that's all about to change. ~ Victoria Tirrel
posted by Seven Authors in A Private Conversation at 12:39 PM
3 Comments:
My first thought for transport was bus, too, and I'm thinking it probably wasn't very expensive. Another one would be hitch-hiking, which was common since a lot of young people still didn't have cars. I'm not sure where one would get info on the price of a bus ticket in 1959, but it must be out there somewhere.
Keep writing! I can't wait to see what happens.
Amy
Regarding the telephone in 1959, the operator was only one of many who would know about a phone call. Most people were on a party line so when you picked up the phone someone might be talking or if you were already on the phone someone else could pick up and listen in. When calling to another town, the caller would say to the operator, for example, General 6 and then the four digit end of the number. In those days, the letter was a far more private thing than a telephone.
Amy
It isn't often than being "this" old is helpful, but I can add some info about a certain time in the upper midwest. In 1959 I was but a child (cough, cough) and my hometown of about 1,200 ( similar to Park Rapids?) had one public payphone, in-a-booth, on main street.
It would be the only way to make a phone call and avoid the dreaded party line. Truely, there was no phone-privacy in those days. You could count on at least one person on your "line" who would hear your distinctive ring (Oh, wait. Maybe that was just a rural thing.), and lift their receiver to "rubberneck." I knew of people who would just randomly pick up their receiver to see if they could catch an interesting conversation.
An outdoor phonebooth would be a cold and bitter place to make a phone call in December. In such a small town any use of a public phone would be, well, public, and someone might be so bold as to ask why Stella was using it--on such a cold day--and who was she calling that she couldn't call from home, anyway?
It would still be the most privacy she could find, unless she can get to a bigger town (in my neck-of-the-woods it would be Aberdeen, 60 miles away). The operator reached in that cold phonebooth would probably not be local, but from the closest regional phone center. Stella would need only to give the operator the person's name and hometown, and if it was a "collect" call (otherwise she would have to have a lot of nickels, dimes and quarters with her).
Hitchhiking would not be an option. Too visible, way too dangerous. Just how desperate is Stella? Hitchhiking was not common even into the mid 60s, even for boys.
Stella is scared, alone, and cold. Victoria! Get the girl out of her mess!
Angela
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