Word: ma
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...past five years Ma Bell's business has grown by 44%, but its energy use has dropped 10%. Tiny electronic devices known as microprocessors, which are being installed to replace mechanical switching devices throughout the system, are proving to be considerable energy savers. To cut heating costs, the ceilings of office buildings are being fitted with special ducts that capture and then recycle the heat thrown off from electric typewriters, copying machines and even office workers (who radiate as much heat as 100-watt light bulbs). Though there are 7% more phone-company cars and trucks (total...
...summer it isn't a bad life. Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter like to watch from the Truman Balcony as the swifts dive and soar in the evening light. They tilt back and forth in their Brumby rockers and quaff homemade-in-the-White-House lemonade by the quart (Maître d' John Ficklin's brew of fresh-squeezed lemons, a touch of sugar and a sprig of mint, served in tall glasses...
Even impersonal names stir improbable emotions. Phone clients have continued to howl as Ma Bell has systematically abolished exchange names (Butterfield, Murray Hill) in favor of numbers. When a disease got named for their organization, some American Legionnaires protested as though fearing voodoo-like contamination. Real estate developers act as if they expect fanciful street names to impart class to entire neighborhoods. But should it be assumed that only classical music is played on Symphony Circle in Vienna...
...seems to own her own time ma chine. She also likes to play with micro-armor: tiny scale models of tanks. A few hours after her fatal accident in Gamma World, she was marshaling miniature armies of dwarfs and ores in a battle based on J.R.R. Tolkien's fantasy classic, The Lord of the Rings. This was not a good weekend for Kim; her side, the dwarfs, was annihilated...
...know, I was getting taller than her, and one day I let her know, 'Hey Ma I'm quitting school,' and oh boy what trouble--- I wanted to do something different than that goddam algebra...