Phone, fax, emails, and the occasional snail mail package are the means of communication in most places these days. The phone is now accentuated with text messaging and blue tooth access and for those that don’t like the aural adornment you can always hold the handset to your ear.
Up here, cellular technology appears to have a replacement. As I said earlier I haven’t seen any cellular towers and my phone hasn’t found system access so I have to assume the service doesn’t exist. Enter the famous radiophone. I tried to get a photo of one today but we had a flood of requests and I couldn’t get to it.
Our health centre is open 8:30 to 5:00 and closed for an hour at lunch. I’m one of the few who doesn’t go home for lunch. Here’s my reasoning. By the time I dress up and get home and have lunch, get dressed for the outdoor temps again and head back, I can spend the time more wisely exploring the health centre and reading things on the various bulletin boards.
For medical services after hours and on weekends, there is a nurse on call to handle the emergencies, consultations and general inquiries. If you call the centre after hours, you get two numbers - one for midwifes and one for the nurse on call. The nurse on call answers your telephone call by means of their radiophone. They immediately ask for your phone number and call back on a land line directly instructing the caller what actions to take.
If the fire department gets a call for the ambulance, they too, inform the nurse on call by radiophone and then will relay more information about the call as it becomes available. The nurse is already on their way to the health centre to meet the ambulance upon arrival.
Those of us on call and away from our phones have pagers to keep us attached to the health centre. I know it happens for xray and I believe it happens that way for the lab folks as well. Use phones first, then pager if needed.
As you can see from the outside shots that I’ve attached there is no end to the number of cables and lines that are on posts here in town. Everything from electricity, cable TV and telephone service depend on those “life” lines. With the winds that have been blowing the past few days I’ve been amazed that we haven’t had power or phone interruptions.
The cable, however, is partially out since Monday night. I was all set ready to watch THE biggest college football game of the season LSU vs. Ohio State. It didn’t happen. Well, the game happened, but not the viewing (at least not in my apartment). A blackout seemed unlikely from a sports franchise standpoint since I don’t think there are a lot of LSU and OHIO STATE interests locally. Naw, it was just the cable out from the storm.
I could get Fox from Detroit, The Toon channel, Discovery and the Outdoor Life Network and that was about it!
That same afternoon at coffee, I had been talking to some of the staff. Here it seems we go from topic to topic about the north as I try to get their impressions of the changes that have occurred here. One person related a story he read in the paper this summer about a telephone repair man. It seems this repair fellow climbed the pole to do some checking on the lines, etc. while a family of polar bears decided to hike near him. That wasn’t enough, though, as these bears decided that the area near bottom of his perch would be a good spot to rest. And so they did.
It seems the telephone man did the next best thing. While up on the pole, he used his testing equipment. He dialed up someone and reported the bears so that they could send help along and to shoo them off. We all laughed and said it was a good thing it was a telephone man. Could you believe the havoc that would have happened if it was Larry the Cable guy on that pole instead? There would have been Morse code interruptions in the cable service as he tried to draw attention to his plight.
On Monday night I looked out my window to see if there was any one at the top of the poles that I could see that needed rescue…so that I could get my football game back
Up here, cellular technology appears to have a replacement. As I said earlier I haven’t seen any cellular towers and my phone hasn’t found system access so I have to assume the service doesn’t exist. Enter the famous radiophone. I tried to get a photo of one today but we had a flood of requests and I couldn’t get to it.
Our health centre is open 8:30 to 5:00 and closed for an hour at lunch. I’m one of the few who doesn’t go home for lunch. Here’s my reasoning. By the time I dress up and get home and have lunch, get dressed for the outdoor temps again and head back, I can spend the time more wisely exploring the health centre and reading things on the various bulletin boards.
For medical services after hours and on weekends, there is a nurse on call to handle the emergencies, consultations and general inquiries. If you call the centre after hours, you get two numbers - one for midwifes and one for the nurse on call. The nurse on call answers your telephone call by means of their radiophone. They immediately ask for your phone number and call back on a land line directly instructing the caller what actions to take.
If the fire department gets a call for the ambulance, they too, inform the nurse on call by radiophone and then will relay more information about the call as it becomes available. The nurse is already on their way to the health centre to meet the ambulance upon arrival.
Those of us on call and away from our phones have pagers to keep us attached to the health centre. I know it happens for xray and I believe it happens that way for the lab folks as well. Use phones first, then pager if needed.
As you can see from the outside shots that I’ve attached there is no end to the number of cables and lines that are on posts here in town. Everything from electricity, cable TV and telephone service depend on those “life” lines. With the winds that have been blowing the past few days I’ve been amazed that we haven’t had power or phone interruptions.
The cable, however, is partially out since Monday night. I was all set ready to watch THE biggest college football game of the season LSU vs. Ohio State. It didn’t happen. Well, the game happened, but not the viewing (at least not in my apartment). A blackout seemed unlikely from a sports franchise standpoint since I don’t think there are a lot of LSU and OHIO STATE interests locally. Naw, it was just the cable out from the storm.
I could get Fox from Detroit, The Toon channel, Discovery and the Outdoor Life Network and that was about it!
That same afternoon at coffee, I had been talking to some of the staff. Here it seems we go from topic to topic about the north as I try to get their impressions of the changes that have occurred here. One person related a story he read in the paper this summer about a telephone repair man. It seems this repair fellow climbed the pole to do some checking on the lines, etc. while a family of polar bears decided to hike near him. That wasn’t enough, though, as these bears decided that the area near bottom of his perch would be a good spot to rest. And so they did.
It seems the telephone man did the next best thing. While up on the pole, he used his testing equipment. He dialed up someone and reported the bears so that they could send help along and to shoo them off. We all laughed and said it was a good thing it was a telephone man. Could you believe the havoc that would have happened if it was Larry the Cable guy on that pole instead? There would have been Morse code interruptions in the cable service as he tried to draw attention to his plight.
On Monday night I looked out my window to see if there was any one at the top of the poles that I could see that needed rescue…so that I could get my football game back
2 comments:
We are enjoying your posts and the pictures. You are giving us a real taste of life in the far north. Thank you, and don't climb any poles for the experience!!! Keep smiling, KK
Bob, your blog is very intersting.
I look forward to the days new blog. You are really educating us southerners.
Keep blogging
Moira
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