Word: phoneman
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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Typical of nothing is the founder, president, general manager and mechanical genius of this 48-year-old system-leathery, quixotic, aging (65) William James Moore. By geography and heredity Phoneman Moore was addicted to telephones. He was born in Alexander Graham Bell's home town of Brantford, Ontario. His cousin was Elisha Gray, co-inventor of the telephone. Not long after leaving Oberlin College in 1892 he patented an improved telephone transmitter, set about manufacturing it, built telephone lines, organized his own system. Today it grosses some $5,000 a month...
...customers-Mr. Moore has 23 telephones, 17 direct lines (seven more phones, 14 more lines than A. T. & T. President Walter Gifford) in his ten-room rococo Caro house. All but one (a living-room extension) have individual listings and numbers in the phone books. Friends acquainted with the phoneman's habits can, by calling Caro, Mich., 583, catch him in Bathroom No. 3. A request for 584 will connect the caller with the Southwest Bedroom; 592 with the Furnace Room; 597 with the Maid's Quarters, and 590 with both ends of the Dining-Room Table. Despite...
...When Phoneman Moore married Schoolteacher Mabel B. T. Clark (his second wife) six months ago, her first task was to unravel the mysteries of a front-hall panel studded with 28 pushbuttons, representing the overflow of her husband's mechanical talents and his preoccupation with the front door. Push one button and the door opens long enough to admit one visitor, then slams shut. Push it twice and a party of six can slip in without getting nipped. For crowds, a second button holds the door open indefinitely. For salesmen, truculent folk and enemies, a special button flips...
...less unorthodox is Phoneman Moore's midsummer method of taking a swim before breakfast. Stepping onto a balcony outside his second-floor bedroom window, he presses a button. From a swimming pool in the yard a model airplane climbs to him on cables. Sitting on a trapeze slung from the undercarriage, he presses another button, the plane heads for the pool. Mr. Moore lets go in time to flop into the water. On the journey back he just hangs on until the plane deposits him on the balcony again...