It worked like this: an enterprising homeschool mom compiled a list of all the moms’ home phone lines because nobody, except rich dads, had cell phones. She would take that list to Kinko’s and make duplicates to distribute at the next homeschool gathering. When something interesting happened, whoever discovered the interesting thing would call the next person on the list and tell her all about that thing with breathless abandon. At no point were dads involved, ever. A man’s voice on the other end of the line would have caused panic and a run on the local banks. Thus, the dissemination of vital information was effected and dads were kept entirely in the dark for as long as possible.
Unfortunately, hardly anyone owned answering machines until well into the 90s, so number 6 on the list might be forced to skip number 7 and go straight to 8 who sent her to 10 because she knew 9 was out of town and 7 had kids with strep. This went on in a round-robin format until, finally, the voice on the other end of the line said “Yes, I know about the thing; I’m the one who initiated the phone tree.” It was pure chaos. This phenomenon is likely being actively studied in laboratory rats today. I don’t know.
Fortunately for me, Katherine Koonce’s generous offer to teach literature to homeschoolers trickled through the phone tree to my house, and I was sent up to the front lines. I have no idea what could possibly have possessed her to want to help us, but she did, and to say that the impact she had on my life was “profound” would be a dramatic understatement.