You're listening to an airwave media podcast.

This episode is brought to you by Pepsi Max.

Christmas is great, but there's loads of ways to make it better like sneaking some chili into the gravy

for some extra oomps or building a playlist that will even get your none up on the table.

Or just cracking open an ice cold Pepsi Max. the Welcome to the useless information podcast. I am Steve Silverman.

When I started teaching high school back in 1990, I had a student come up to me and asked me if they could borrow a nickel of all things.

Even back then, five cents didn't buy very much, so I questioned what he needed the nickel for.

That's when he surprised me with the response that he intended

to use it to make a call at the payphone outside the school. You see, back then almost

every payphone in the country charged 25 cents to make a call but not

in Chatham, New York.

All the payphones in the area were operated by a local telephone company named Taconic

telephone and they took great pride in the fact

that they were the only company still charging a nickel to make calls.

As you could probably guess, Taconic telephone was eventually sold and that was the end of the nickel phone calls.

Of course, in a modern cell phone age, payphones themselves have become nearly obsolete. Good luck finding one. But back in the days

when telephones were ubiquitous an employee of the telephone company needs to drive

around and empty the coins at each and every payphone.

All these coins are then taken back to an office to be counted before ultimately being

turned over to a bank to enrich Ma Bell's pockets.

Today's story begins on Saturday, September 23rd of 1950.

That's when 30-year-old Miami Florida police detective John Rezic and his 22 year old wife Eleanor Jane

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