FAMILIES ON CALL: TECHNOLOGY LINKS WORK, PLAY, HOME TO FAST LANE

The latest in handheld cellular phones fit in the palm of your hand and can be used to send and receive electronic data from a portable computer.

A tone sounds and before the dispatcher speaks a firefighter jumps into high gear.

Reached in route to an appointment, a saleswoman juggles her schedule to meet her client's request.

The children's soccer practice was switched to a different field and the youngsters are waiting for a ride home.

At home, at work and at play, most lives are on-call.

Technology has woven a network that makes personal accessibility just a few numbers away. Pager and cellular phone signals connect society with invisible pathways.

But for all the far-reaching effects of beeping or ringing communication tools, one-to-one contact is still the ultimate goal.

Fourteen-year-old Bryan Sander of Jackson just likes to keep in touch with his friends. When Bryan's beeper sounds after school or on weekends, it's usually a friend calling, his mother, Pam Sander, said. "It's like a toy," she said of the pager. Pagers and cellular phones are not allowed at many schools, including within the Jackson and Cape Girardeau school systems.

Pam Sander bought the pager for business reasons two years ago. The need did not materialize, so, when Bryan asked to use the pager, she acquiesced. "He just had to have one because our older son has a cellular phone," she said.

For reasons ranging from families and friends keeping in touch to life-saving notification, communications devices are everywhere.

"The communication industry is just booming," said Mary Perego, communications consultant with Dial-A-Page.

"Communications devices, in general, can be very helpful in enhancing relations across the board," said Donna Hanschen, Ameritech area manager.

Families who live and work with beepers find their own ways of connecting with one another and with their careers.

Almost 35 years ago Les Crump chose a profession that makes accessibility a priority.

"I carry a pager 24-hours-a-day, every day of the year," said Crump, chief of the Scott City Fire and Rescue Department. "The only time I do not respond is if I happen to be out of town, out of range."

Before the 911 dispatcher speaks through the radio dispatch paging system, a tone sounds with a quality that gets one's attention, Crump chuckled.

"It gets your adrenaline pumping, your heart rate increases in a hurry," he said. Through the years, for Crump the intensity of focus sparked by the emergency call has not lessened. "It was there the first time, and it's there all these years later," Crump said.

Crump's wife, Mary Ann, adjusted many years ago to life with a man who is on-call 24-hours-a-day. "I am always concerned, whenever they go like that, that everybody is all right," she said. "You don't know what they're going to be facing when they get there." The concern is always there, but "you just kind of go with it."

"We just always lived our lives with it or around it," Mary Ann Crump said, noting with a chuckle that "sometimes you have to heat supper two or three times."

Scott City Fire and Rescue Deputy Chief Jay Cassout remembers a Christmas when his pager sounded in the wee hours of the morning. Upon his return at about noon on Christmas Day, he found his three children gathered around the family Christmas tree. "They were waiting till I got home to open their presents," he recalls, still amazed with his family's acceptance and understanding.

An imperative tool of the emergency services world and a favorite tool of the business community for many years, pagers are becoming popular communication devices within families.

Hanschen sees more and more couples choosing pagers, alone or in combination with cellular phones, as a way of keeping in touch. Personal use of pagers, she and Perego agree, is on the rise.

With the frantic pace family life can assume, "being able to stay connected with those folks and keep those lines of communications open ... that's real critical," Hanschen said.

"It gives parents piece of mind that their kids can get hold of them," Perego said.

Cape Girardeans Eugene and Marsha Holloway, a businessman and a recreational therapist, respectively, regularly use their pagers, which are equipped with voice mail options. Their children, ages 14 and 11, both active in sports, help keep the family's schedule fast-paced.

"Everybody's really in touch, not only for emergencies, but just for personal needs, that's what helps me a lot," Eugene Holloway said.