Breaking The Area Code

In some instances area codes have become a part of our historical record. I grew up in the 615, further educated in the 601, took my first church pastorate in the 501, transferred 8 years later to the 864, assisted in the 225, and have landed in the 706. With the advent of cell phones, an area code can stay with you no matter whether you still reside in that area or not. In fact, it’s easier to retain your area code rather than go through the mess of letting your contacts know you’ve changed your number. When I moved from a city in South Carolina to a city in Louisiana it was no big deal to retain the South Carolina area code. Baton Rouge was a college town, so a wide variety of area codes was expected and normal. Like a tattoo, they can  serve as a reminder and an opportunity to tell a story from the past. For us, 864 was a marker for a time and a place and a people where our young kids grew up, friends were made, and our faith was tried and tested and grown. It was also the place where the area code shook loose from place of residence since phones were located in your Levis™ rather than on your kitchen wall. Nevertheless, an area code can bring reminiscence, encourage a sense of pride, or summons a haunting ghost of failed relationships past.

706

That retention of an area code changed when I moved to a small mountain town to minister in a very local place to a very local people. Here it has, as an outsider in perpetuity, become beneficial to erase that past prefix and embrace a new local number. To have an area code outside the area can be a negative where local pride digs in and doubles down in an attempt to curb the tide of outside change (especially if the change is from 954). Apparently there is no name the mountains aren’t calling.

Here, an area code is less a marker and memory of where you have been and more a family tie. It’s a team uniform and a mascot uniting a town, county, or region.  It forms alliances, can encourage prejudices, and gets a voice rather than a voicemail. It fetches discounts and smiles and a seat in an over-filled restaurant.

For building relationships, a local area code can more efficiently break down barriers. Suspicion of an outsider takes much longer to overcome with a foreign number. It raises eyebrows and questions. Are you passing through or are you committed? Is this your second home (second rate) or place of permanence (first rate)? Are you here to change our place, pillage our land, and raise our taxes? Are you here to exploit the people and overburden the landscape? Are you here to tell me what I can and cannot do . . . how to raise my dogs or where I can shoot my gun or explode my Tannerite™?

Obtaining a local area code can answer some, if not all, of these questions in a three digit number. I am here. I am committed. I want to be a part. That speaks volumes in a suspicious culture.