Some interesting comments from readers about Chapter 51. Specifically, did the 9-1-1 system exist in 1978, or do I have an error in the story? I verified my recollections from the time by googling it, and found several sources, not just Wikipedia.
The 911 system actually started in 1968. Coverage was very sparse and spotty in those early days, and nobody really knew what to do with it, but the phone company (Ma Bell) reserved that number for emergency services. The FBI, for instance, wanted no part of it, since they didn’t want to handle the nation’s emergency calls. It started with a few small towns and cities implementing it piecemeal, with phones ringing into police stations and fire houses, and then it grew. It was nothing like the regional systems we have now, that tie together counties and metropolitan areas through emergency dispatch systems. Still, by 1978, the time of the wedding, it was a well-known and understood number.
Writing these stories is always fascinating.