Paper Address Book - Still Useful

By I.J. Hudson

What can an old address book tell you?  A lot.

I’m talking about a paper address book, the kind you used to buy at a card store – you know, with tabs along the side to separate names beginning with A from those beginning with B, etc.

Many of those books disappeared with the Palm Pilot era, then Smart Phones.  Address books became the digital “contacts” and sync-able between desktop and mobile device. Of course, a lot of people neglected to keep that sync going and when the mobile device died, found themselves losing contacts.  Remember when “backup” used to mean pretty much one thing - move backwards, not copy for safekeeping?

The paper version is always there, if you keep in the same place, like a desk drawer in the kitchen.  It’s safely tucked away next to the dish full of change and paper clips, rubber bands and papers you’ve been meaning to file.

The analog book also provides a history of sorts.  As people move or remarry, the address book gathers line-throughs, additions and maybe an occasional “white-out.”  It’s a record of change.  It may be the source of a Christmas card list, a book to consult when you’ve been out of touch with old friends, who have moved, picked up a retirement home, or shucked it all for an RV and added a post office box somewhere.

The handwritten changes are a running history of lives. The old friends, their addresses are phone numbers are tied to us – when we lived somewhere else at a different point in our lives. Some early entries didn’t have/didn’t need an area code; others had an area code change even though they didn’t move. Now an area code doesn’t necessarily denote where someone lives.  It’s just an identification number for someone to dial to reach that phone.

We kept our old paper address book so long that the pages kept coming out.  So we put rubber bands around it, and tried to keep it together.  But, alas, the day finally came when we had to put it aside (not throw it away) and make a new contacts list gleaned from the old.  It is much shorter, but it’s still in a decorative address book, kept in a kitchen drawer.

 Yes, I do have two BlackBerries, and the contacts and appointments in each are backed up.  But there’s something about pulling out the address book when I want to send an old-fashioned card (handmade using software) to someone for their birthday.  The new book does the job nicely, but it was always interesting to look folks up in the old book, note the changes over the years – and reminisce.