The Wrong Number

Even The Most Innocent Human Interactions Can Change The World

To my readers: Sunday is Mother’s Day. This year I’m thinking of my mom more than ever. I miss her! So, I’m reprinting my favorite column in her honor. I hope you like it as much as I do.

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They sat at a small bistro having a nice quiet lunch.  It was a time that he looked forward to: taking his elderly mother to lunch.  Even though she ate many healthy meals at her retirement community, there were some dishes that she just never had the opportunity to enjoy.  He liked taking her to various local restaurants to sample different fare.  Today’s lunch was one of her favorites: a fried oyster sandwich.  For a little woman she gobbled it up quickly.

One of his hobbies was tracking the family’s genealogy, a pastime that he’d been pursuing on and off for many years.  He was proud that he had been able to identify thousands of relatives back to Elizabethan-era England.  He liked talking with his mom about the family and, after many years of delving into the family’s past, periodically learning some new tidbit that he could add to his work.  As his mother aged and her memory became faint, he was interested in learning as much as possible before her memory failed her.

This day was no different.  As they ate their lunch, they chatted about this and that, kids and goings on at the retirement home.  As often happens, the conversation wandered onto family history such as where her grandparents lived and who was buried where.  Eventually the conversation turned to other subjects and soon they became quiet.

He looked up from his salad and noticed that his mom had a dreamy, faraway look.  “It all started with a wrong number.”

“What do you mean?”

She grew up outside of the city of Norristown, a bustling community in the western Philadelphia suburbs.  Norristown had a large Italian community and one member was Gaspare Genuardi who owned a farm and sold his produce out of the back of a truck as a huckster on the streets of the city.  As his business grew, he began delivering produce and some grocery products to customers outside the city.

“Well”, she explained, “mother always got her produce from Genuardi’s.”  Her mom Verda would call in her order and one of the five Genuardi sons would deliver it to the house.

She explained that one time in the late spring of 1948 Verda called Genuardi’s and a woman answered instead of Mr. Genuardi or one of his sons.  Verda was taken aback but the woman on the other end of the conversation seemed nice and told Verda that the phone numbers between their home and the Genuardi’s were very similar and she often received wrong numbers.

Verda explained that they had a large family of five children and that she often used the Genuardi delivery service.  Ruth, the other woman, said that she had three boys and that the picture of her oldest son was just in the newspaper because of something he did as a scoutmaster.

They chatted some more and realized that Verda’s oldest daughter Edith and Ruth’s oldest son Raymond were about the same age.  Edith had just graduated from college and Raymond was back from the war and working as a mechanical engineer.   Deciding it wouldn’t be too bad if the kids met, Verda invited Ruth to her home to see her peonies which were just blooming.  Ruth loved peonies.

Verda and her husband William lived on a quiet street in the prosperous “Halford Tract” of Norristown.  She and William, a Philadelphia banker, had purchased the Dutch colonial home in the midst of the depression.  The street, William’s Way, was lined with large sycamore trees that the kids called “buttonball trees.”  By the standards at the time the home was large with four bedrooms, a sunroom and a detached two car garage.  But for the family of seven it was just right.  Verda had a large bed of peonies, some of which had come from William’s aunt who lived in New York.

The next Sunday was a beautiful cloudless day and that afternoon Ruth, driven by Raymond, came to Verda’s home.  Verda showed Ruth the peonies; the women chatted and had a lovely afternoon.  But, the object of the trip didn’t go as expected.  Raymond didn’t pay much attention to Edith; Walter, one of Edith’s three brothers, had parked his car in front of the house.  Walter was a mechanic and Raymond had worked on aircraft in the Army Air Corps while stationed in England during the war.  The two men had a lot in common and were out front of the house talking about Walter’s car and cars in general.

Edith was not impressed.

But something did happen.  A couple of nights later Raymond called Edith and asked if she’d like to have dinner after work one night.  She agreed.  Being that both of them worked in Philadelphia they agreed to meet for dinner downtown.

The date went fine and they continued to see each other, but Edith did have a couple of other beaus.

Back at the lunch table, having never heard any of this story before, the son sat stunned.  Referring to Raymond, Edith said that “he was very insistent; he wouldn’t let me alone.”

After returning his mother to the retirement community, the son sat in his car, images of what were and what could have been swimming in his head.  He mused that the simplest and seemingly the most innocent human interactions and even mistakes can truly, in some significant ways, change the world.

*** About the Author ***
Chuck Hardy is retired and lives in Sussex County, Delaware. His parents, Edith and Ray Hardy were married in May 1949 at her parent’s home on William’s Way. Chuck was born in February of 1954. He has a sister, a son, a daughter and a granddaughter.

All because of a wrong number.