Remember the magic of getting a new Yellow Pages? I recall as a kid when this device of great potential would show up on our door step. Nearly as good as a new J.C. Penney catalog for fantasizing about exotic (but of course very mundane things), the new Yellow Pages offered insight into the stores and services in exotic parts of Salt Lake City that our family never or rarely ventured to. After perusing the book for hours, I would ask my mother if we could visit a certain toy store, for example, usually to be shot down with "there's no reason to drive all the way over there!" We'd then end up at K-Mart, and as everyone knows there is precious-little magic in K-Mart (aside from the blue light, that is.)
There was only one time when my cajoling my mother to go to a toy store found in the Yellow Pages actually worked, and that was for a store that used to be in Salt Lake's Trolley Square. I'm not sure why my mother agreed to go--perhaps she just wanted to get off the farm for an afternoon. In any case, the toy store lived up to my expectations--all sorts of exotic toys and games. I believe I bought a wooden yo yo, but it may have been something else.
The magic of Yellow Pages now Yellow Book, is long gone, however, and one must wonder why it even exists with the ubiquity of the Internet. When Yellow Book arrived last week on my door step I was just annoyed as I tripped over it. It went right into the recycling bin.
i'm amazed that you ever had a fascination for the yellow pages.
ReplyDeleteI also liked train timetables and maps, lis.
ReplyDeletedidn't the publisher of yellow book just file for bankruptcy?
ReplyDeleteIt's true. Just takes up space.
ReplyDeleteNo doubt, Jason. The Yellow Pages are about as useful as classified ads are. Who is going to pay for that? Definite sea change in mass marketing, that's for sure.
ReplyDeleteI don't know if you remember, but in a brief stint of job desperation (right after I quit the Cafe Pierpont job), I delievered the phone book. I had to have people sign off on my delivery sheet, just so I could show my employers that I stopped by 200 houses and not just 2 dumpsters. Mostly, people were perturbed. "How many of these phone books do we have to have?" they usually asked.
ReplyDeleteEven at that time, 6 years ago, I understood that the phone book was outdated. The Yellow Pages and Yo-Yos have to make way for the Internet and Xboxes. It's strange how certain sensations are going the way of the passenger pigeon. It's mournful to loose a sense of the tactile; the flinging of a Yo-Yo or thumbing through a catalog.