There Are Other Worlds to Sing In
The unlikely friendship of a little lad and a telephone operator
Sharing stories is part of the world of social media, especially on platforms like Facebook and WhatsApp where stories can be shared with groups en masse, or easily forwarded or shared with a lot of individuals. Before social media, these stories would land up in the in-box of our email. Many of these stories were mawkish and schmaltzy with a strong “feel good” message. When such stories came my way, I would read some and ignore others; most would eventually leave my mind and memory.
Despite the liberal sentimentality that makes even poignant stories sound puerile, one story has stuck in my mind; it is also one that makes the rounds every few years — the story of a friendship between a young lad and a telephone operator in the Pacific Northwest of the United States. It describes events that happened towards the middle of the twentieth century. The story has been circulated under various titles: ‘Information, Please,’ ‘The Voice in the Box’ and ‘Other Worlds to Sing In.’
It was billed as a true story when first published in Reader’s Digest in 1966, but how true is it? Snopes has tagged it as “Undetermined,” stating that it is difficult to fact check everything that occurred so long back. Barbara Mikkelson, writing in Snopes, goes on to say that some versions circulating…
