THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT 
              Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: Monday, August 7, 1995                 TAG: 9508070048
SECTION: LOCAL                    PAGE: B1   EDITION: FINAL 
TYPE: Column 
SOURCE: Guy Friddell 
                                             LENGTH: Medium:   59 lines

RINGING ENDORSEMENT FOR A PHONE THAT MAKES ITS PRESENCE KNOWN

A recent column dealt with my exasperation with telephones these days that only whisper instead of cutting loose with the resounding ringing of yore.

If Alexander Graham Bell, upon inventing the telephone and thereby attaching his name to the sound of it, had called on the line to his assistant on the other side of the laboratory, ``Mr. Watson, come here!'' Mr. Watson wouldn't have stirred had it been one of today's soft-voiced phones, because he wouldn't have heard it ring.

Bell would have had to break the stalemate by yelling across the laboratory: ``WATSON, YOU BLOCKHEAD, PICK UP THAT CONFOUNDED THINGAMAJIG!''

(Only later did somebody, probably Mrs. Watson, think to call it a telephone.)

In my childhood, when a person pulled the handle on an alarm box, it set a bell in the fire station clanging in the decibels one would expect to hear only on doomsday.

It not only woke up the firemen, it also set everybody else to running in all directions within a mile of the station.

That is the kind of loudmouth phone that I yearned to have at home. And couldn't find.

But after the column appeared, many of you lamented that you, too, missed the old-fashioned phone that rang its head off.

During a recent rambling talk to a group, I noted my disgust that amid our clamorous society the only thing that cooed quietly was the telephone.

Afterward, a young woman, a telephone operator, told me that numerous consumers complain to her about telephones they can't hear.

``As many as five a day,'' she said. One elderly lady, she said, cried with frustration at not being able to hear the phone ring.

Now if five a day are grousing to each operator that they can't hear the effete phone ring, adding up to thousands of complaints, wouldn't you think that manufacturers would stop making mute telephones?

What good does it do for telephone companies to advertise less expensive long-distance rates if the person you are calling can't hear the confounded phone ring?

Do not ask for whom the bell tolls; you can't hear it any longer, so why ask?

Answering my question, the personable young operator said an attachment to the phone would maximize the sound of its bell.

So I ordered one for about $50, and a young friend hooked it up.

Nowadays when company comes, I say, ``You want to hear a phone ring once more, listen to this!''

They cluster around the phone as I call and ask the operator to ring my number. And then hang up.

Whereupon the phone comes up like thunder out of China cross the bay, and my friends clap their hands to their ears and holler.

One fellow rang out the front door, shouting, ``FIRE! FIRE!'' by CNB