Information please

There is a delightful story about a special friend a man named Paul made when he was quite young. Paul’s father had one of the first telephones in Seattle. He was too small to reach the telephone, but used to listen with fascination when his mother talked to it.  Then Paul discovered that somewhere inside the wonderful device lived an amazing person – her name was “Information, Please” and there was nothing she did not know. 

Paul’s first personal experience with this genie-in the-bottle came one day while his mother was out. Amusing himself at the tool bench in the basement, Paul whacked his finger with a hammer. The pain was terrible, but there didn’t seem any reason to cry because there was no one home to give sympathy. He walked around the house sucking his throbbing finger, finally the idea hit him - The telephone!  Dragging the kitchen stool to the phone he climbed up, unhooked the receiver and held it to his ear. “Information, Please,” A click or two and a small clear voice spoke into Paul’s ear.

Losing a child

It is every parent’s worst nightmare, when a highly anticipated Christmas shopping trip with grandparents in tow takes a dramatic turn for the worst as they suddenly realised that their five-year old, is nowhere to be found. This very thing happened to one of my friends. With fears of kidnapping racing through their minds, they split up to search for their precious little Joe. My friends assignment was the car park. In the grip of anxiety he made his way through the fresh fallen snow yelling, “Joe, Joe!” I have to tell you that he felt a little foolish. But being embarrassed by shouting out in a car park was overshadowed by fears for his son and his need to find him.

But, after covering the extensive area of the car park, there was no sign of Joe. More concerned than ever, he went back into the shopping precinct to see if anyone else had spotted him. He was hoping beyond hope that either his wife or his mother had found him, but their search had turned up empty as well. Their sense of desperation was hitting new levels when his dad walked around the corner with Joe in hand. Overwhelmed with relief, they asked, “Dad, where did you find him?”  "At the sweet counter,” he replied. “Little Joe had his hands behind his back and his eyes were right up at the level of the sweet shelves.” He didn’t even realize that he was lost! Nor did he have a clue about the kind of danger he was in.