The Blue Telephone

How polite and how elegant an empty roadside telephone booth can be. Reflecting a time, not so long ago at all, when our telephone conversations were ours to carry on and keep close. Played out within boundaries created by cozy booths or partitions, situated within interior and exterior spaces that provided both privacy and civility, our calls and their content were not always the currency of sidewalks, restaurant dining rooms, classrooms, museums, department stores, bakeries, or subway cars. This space-age example lured us from a rural route into the parking lot of the Keystone Inn, somewhere near the border of Armstrong and Indiana Counties.