To the editor:

I have just learned another marvelous service on Whidbey Island — that Whidbey Telecom has offered to citizens of beautiful Whidbey Island an incredible service and restored my belief in mankind.

Instead of destroying all the old telephone booths around the Island, they have come up with the idea of reutilizing them in a way that assists the people it serves. A company not out to make the biggest bucks with some harmful product that shouldn’t be on the market, but a company that cares for the people it serves; a company that recognizes that despite cell phones that most everyone has, there remains a need sometimes, by someone, for a phone, who either doesn’t own one, or the battery is dead, or it was left at home when an emergency strikes. What an incredible, altruistic endeavor by Whidbey Telecom. Hooray and kudos to Whidbey Telecom.

Not long ago, for some reason I began thinking about public telephone booths, and how you never see them anywhere, not many anyway. I grew up on the East Coast, and can remember over the years (before cell phones) of being on the road, needing to make a call, and felt blessed when I would stumble upon a phone booth, one of which was located at Paul’s gas station at the crossroads of Routes 28 and 17, halfway between my school and my home. And there was one at the Trailways bus station in Warrenton where I always called my dad to come pick me up on Friday nights after my week’s work in Washington, D.C. Memories and telephone booths.

Me, the sixth and youngest child of parents who lived through the Depression era — who lived by that motto, repair, reuse, recycle or do without; or some such.

It does my heart good to see and know that in small ways, the world is either returning to some of the old ways, or learning anew that sometimes, some of the things from the olden days are best.

And thank you for running that article on Whidbey Telecom in the paper!

Diane Ahuna

Langley