Most bankers aren't ready to help you until after their third cup of coffee.
But with Central National Banks, after our service, you don't have to wait
for the bank lobby to open to get help. You can contact us from
six to eight thirty in the morning or from five to ten in the evening,
and we'll connect you to a real, live, local person who can
answer questions and fix problems seven days a week, Bank, different bank,
Central, Central National Bank member FDIC, family phoning home. Spirits frequently communicate
with the living through the technological trappings of modern life. Ghosts will often gain
attention by meddling with lights, televisions, and stereos. Their energy fields sometimes
appear as orbs of light on photos or videotapes. It should come as no
surprise, then, that the dead occasionally choose to speak with us via our
most common means of communication, the telephone. Following are three stories based upon
the accounts of Texans who had received extremely long distance calls, in two cases
from departed family members and and one from a close family friend. I repeat,
will you accept these charges? The operator has becoming impatient. Beg.
Carolyne was only eight years old and did not know how to handle such a
strange situation. She stood in the hallway of the neighbor's house, holding a
heavy black phone receiver uncertainly and scuffing her Sunday best shoes on the tile.
She wished she had not volunteered to answer the telephone. Daddy. She called
out to the kitchen, where she could hear her parents carrying on a muted
conversation with other adults. More loudly then Daddy. For Heaven's sakes, Carolyne,
who is it? Her mother spoke sharply. Today was a serious day.
The children had been told to be respectfully quiet during the visit. Carolyn
stretched the phone cord around the corner so she could see through the doorway to
the kitchen. There the grown up sat around the kitchen table. They all
wore conservative church clothes. Carolyn's mother and the neighbor lady wore subdued dresses,
nothing like the fresh petals that all the other women had shown off at the
at that morning service. It was Easter, but Carolyne knew that there would
be no hunt for chocolate eggs and bright baskets of shredded paper. Easter meant
something different now, I said, who is it? All four adults were
staring at her. Now, everybody knew that it was a great sin to
tell even a tiny fib on Easter Sunday, so Caroline couldn't even hang up
and say that it was the wrong number. She would have to tell them.
The operator said, it's a collect call, she said, in a
tiny voice, from whom Caroline waited a long time before she answered from Joyce.
Caroline's mother made a round oh of horror with her lips. Her father
grew red with rage. The neighbor lady covered her face with her hands.
Only the neighbor man spoke, do you think that's funny, Carolyne? There
were trimmers in his voice, and patches of red and white above the stretch
of collar of his shirts. Is that some kind of joke? Caroline was
close to tear nose. I won't make that up, mister Johnson. I'm
just saying what the operator said. Joyce had been the Johnson's oldest daughter on
Easter Sunday. The previous year, she had been in a car accident that
had taken her life. Now, as the two families war solemnly marking the
anniversary of her death, some one who was claiming to be Joyce, was
making a collect telephone call. It was too horrible. What should I do,
mister Johnson? Caroline held the telephone receiver out uncertainly, wanting someone,
anyone, to take it away from her. The neighbor man sighed. His
chair scraped loudly across the floor as he rose. He crossed the kitchen,
took the telephone receiver out of Caroline's hand, and spoke into it with more
weariness than anger. Who is this? He asked. There was a moment
while he listened, then he painted. He was a large man, and
he came down to the floor with a great crash, knocking over a plant
stand and the small telephone table as he went. His wife screamed, and
Carroll's parents jumped up from the kitchen table and hurried over to where the man
lay. They crouched on the floor beside him, patting his hands and face.
When his eyelids began to flutter, they each took one arm and helped
him into the nearest chair. His wife perched on the arm of the chair
and stroked his thinning hair. Are you all right, Bill? Are you
all right? She asked? Over and over. Caroline retreated to the farthest
corner of the living room and watched the action. Her mother went to the
kitchen and produced a glass of cool water. Her father righted the plants stand
and the table and picked up the dangling phone receiver. He put it briefly
to his air before replacing it to the cradle. Line's dead, He said.
When the neighbor man had drunk the water and his wife had stopped crying,
Caroline's father dared to ask what every one wanted to know, Bill,
He said, who was it? The neighborman sat his glass down with a
trembling hand before he answered. It was Joyce, he said in a small
voice. She said. He put down one hand over his eyes and paused.
She said, Daddy, I can't get home. There was a silence
in the room for a long time. Finally Caroline's father spoke. That was
a cruel prank that someone just played on you. He said, we'll get
to the bottom of this, Bill, and whoever's responsible is going to pay.
Bill Johnson shook his head. It was Joyce, he said weakly.
I know her voice, even after all these months, I couldn't mistake her
voice. It was a prank. Caroline's father insisted, I'll prove it to
you and you'll feel better. Caroline's father did try to prove his theory in
those days that followed. He contacted the phone company and had them trace the
strange call. There is no record of a collect call to the neighbor's telephone
number that day. Eventually, both families gave up trying to explain the mystery
of how a beloved daughter tried to call home on the anniversary of her death.
Guys Shupper of Yovalde, Texas, was accustomed to hearing his telephone ring
at all hours of the night. He frequently received phone calls from his cousin
Pat and nat Owl, who often forgot the others maintained more regular schedules.
At three o'clock one morning, the persistent ring of the phone invaded Guy's slumber.
He grouped from the receiver on the bedside table, and, without bothering
to say hello, mumbled do you know what time it is? A familiar
voice apologized, I'm sorry about that, said Pat, but there's something I
need you to do tomorrow. She asked Guy if he would drop by a
surgical supply store to pick up a pair of support hose, though, were
on order for her maid. As his cousin made her request, Guy came
fully awake. His eyes widened in disbelief. He gripped the telephone receiver tightly
and screamed into it Pat. There was no answer. The connection was dead,
and so was Pat. It had taken Guy a few sleepy moments to
remember that his cousin had passed away three days earlier. The next day,
Guy decided to check with the surgical supply store. He found that there had
been an order placed by his cousin and it was ready to be picked up.
Guy collected the hose and delivered them to the maid, who was grateful
but not surprised. I knew miss Pat wouldn't forget about me, she said.
Apparently she had not, and Pat had also not forgotten her good hearted
cousin Guy, who could be counted on for a favor even when called upon
and the dead of night. But Dallas family was in morning following the death
of a very dear friend. To make matters worse, immediately after the man's
death, they began receiving print calls in the middle of the night. Every
time the phone was answered at night, the line was silent. Whoever was
on the other end would not speak. Repeatedly, The family tried to trace
the calls using the tracing feature on their phone, but the future didn't seem
to work, and the calls remained a mystery. After weeks of disruption,
the mother of the family was finally successful in tracing one of the calls.
She dialed the number given to her by the phone company, fully prepared to
verbally blast whoever has been making the annoying calls. She was not prepared,
however, for what she discovered. The man who answered the telephone was working
a night shift at the cemetery where the family's close friend had recently been buried.
He insisted that he knew nothing of the calls, that he had worked
alone every night, and that the phone always sat unused during those hours.
Eventually, the night time calls stopped. If they had been coming from the
family friend, He eventually gave up trying to deliver his message. Unfortunately,
as the spirit discovered, the phone service is somewhat unreliable from the other side,