General Discussion

I still live in the country. I remember a lot of those changes.

Until a few years ago, we did not have 911. We had a lady in town named MaryLou. MaryLou had the fire phones and ambulance phones in the front part of her apartment. MaryLou knew everyone in the area, whether they lived in town or the country. She knew me from the library. She knew every member of my family.

One evening after I came home from the library MaryLou called. She asked me if my husband was home. He was not. She asked, "He works with animals, doesn't he?" I said yes. We still farmed then, and we had cattle. He was familiar with all sorts of farm critters. MaryLou told me that my neighbor to the south had had a mishap with her horse. Something had spooked her horse and she had been injured by the frightened animal. A passerby had called an ambulance for her, but was unable to do much with the horse other than shoo it into the barn. MaryLou asked if my husband could go down there and take care of the horse. Of course he did that easily.

My husband came home and sat down at the kitchen table. Our dog sniffed his boots and pants so vigorously that she almost inhaled them. My husband said, "Yes, dog. Now you know what a horse smells like."

My husband has a gift with animals. MaryLou had a gift for solving almost any local human emergency, whether it required an ambulance, law enforcement or neighborly cooperation. We have 911 now. Sometimes I wish we still had MaryLou.