I unfortunately do not remember my family’s first phone number.
But I do remember our phone number in Saudi Arabia…
It was 2324.
See, I had an enchanted and bohemian childhood, but I never had the type of roots that McMurtry refers to here.
I envy it in a way.
The way that history and time can bring belonging.
It reminds me of the power of being known.
I have had the same postal box for sixty-seven years: Box 552, Archer City, Texas. My family’s first phone number in Archer City was 9. On the ranch we still fed cattle out of a wagon. I write on a typewriter. I come, not just from a different time, but from a different era.
-Larry McMurtry, Literary Life