352-1100

In third, fourth, and fifth grades, there was one dreaded annual event--well, one dreaded annual event besides the softball game at Adams' Playground: competency testing. Competency testing was important; we drilled for weeks (or maybe days) beforehand to make sure that we knew the correct facts. Ha. It was probably as much a test for the teachers as for us students, but I couldn't have known that at the time. I remember mild anxiety leading up to the tests, and I remember practicing for them. As far as the tests themselves? I remember almost nothing I was tested on during those tests, which I hope means that I was competent.

The key phrase is "almost nothing." I do remember being forced to memorize the number 352-1100. This was a Very Important number, because it was the number we were supposed to call in case of an emergency. Remember, this was 1983-1985. There was no 911 back then, at least not in rural New Hampshire. So we memorized 352-1100, and we practiced what information we were supposed to give to the person who picked up the phone: our names, the emergency, and where we lived. There was always a little thrill in being able to say these things--perhaps a thrill of the fear of "what if" we ever actually had to use the number. Surely we wouldn't, but what if . . .

Yesterday I got to use that number. This is still rural New Hampshire, and 352-1100 is still how we call mutual aid. It hasn't changed in 24 years. Probably they couldn't change it because all of those grown-up fourth graders wouldn't know what to do. 911? We know only 352-1100! I asked Dad why we didn't have 911 like the rest of the world, and he said that he thought that we did, or that we would soon, but that 352-1100 worked, too. Ugh. Who would want to use 911 when one could dial the classy and familiar 352-1100? I told Dad that I hope they don't change it.

So yes, yesterday Mom was making lunch in the Fairwood kitchen, and I was eating breakfast. (Ah, late night the night before. And I did rise in plenty of time to have quiet time and make morning meeting at 9:00, but I had skipped eating breakfast.) And the fire alarm went off, as it has with some regularity this year. (The first time it went off for the school year was in the middle of Dad's fire safety presentation to the students. They thought the alarm was planned for special effect, and it wasn't.) Mom and I looked at each other and around the kitchen. There was nothing burning there. I ran to the alarm panel in the office, and it read "Laundry 2," so we dashed down to the big laundry to find a smoking dryer.

It happened quickly and was scary, and I didn't have to use the fire extinguisher because Shawn and Gerry arrived promptly on the scene and took over, BUT after they thought they had things under control, I got to call Mutual Aid--352-1100! I was shaken due to the fire, but I remembered to stammer out my name and where I was calling from, and tell them that we thought we had the situation under control, so the fire trucks didn't have to come. (It turns out that they do have to come if it's a real fire, even if it's under control. I'll know that for next time, God forbid there be a next time.)

My heart was pounding (like Htoo-Eh's when he gave a testimony in meeting that morning, only different), but I was so proud of myself! I would have known the number to call, even without Mom shouting it out to me, and probably without it being posted on the phone booth wall in 100-point marker font. (I think I might have temporarily forgotten the magical 352-1100 during the 10 years I was away in Indianapolis and my brain atrophied to merely having to remember 911, but that sign in the phone booth has refreshed my memory of that dear old school comrade in the year I have been back in New Hampshire.)

The end of the story was that Shawn and Gerry grabbed burning clothes out of the big dryer and flung them upon the pavement, where they continued to burst into small flames, until they were finally conquered by fire extinguisher foam, then water. Shawn, Gerry, and Uncle Tim examined them for evidence of what might have caught fire. It was an uncharacteristic moment: Fairwood men soberly examining a pile of women's clothes. The clothes were lying on the pavement, a charred mass, when the fire chief and fire truck arrived. "Well, those will need to be washed again," the chief joked. "The young people like that--the raggedy look."

The Very End of the story is that God is merciful and that the fire alarm system works . . . and that important lessons well learned at age 8 can come in handy at age 34. Who needs a short little number like 911?