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Posted by Diamond Dave on August 13, 2007, 5:05 am
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Death of Joybubbles (Joe Engressia)
I saw this on another telecom forum today. Reposted for those who
don't belong to them. This was written by Mark Cuccia.
It appears that Joybubbles (born Joe Engressia), the famous blind
telephone "phreak" died of a heart attack on or around August 7, 2007.
He was 58 years old.
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I have sad news of yet another death, that of "Joybubbles", born Joe
Engressia. "Joybubbles" wasn't just a "handle", but rather what he
legally changed his name to around 1990. He was also known by some as
"The Whistler".
Joe Engressia was one of the better known blind "phone phreaks" of
the 1960s/70s-era. He even got a job with Mountain Bell Telephone
in the 1970s-era, and worked for a while as a TSPS Operator in Denver
as well in other areas of Mountain Bell.
More recently he lived in Minneapolis MN.
I had heard of him from books and articles on the telephone network,
but in 1995, I was introduced to him over the phone by another mutual
telephone enthusiast, Les Reeves of Atlanta GA, who also used to post
to Townson's Telecom Digest. Sadly, Les Reeves also died back in
early 2003.
"Joybubbles" was still interested in the telephone network, such as
new area codes, cutovers of older switches into new digital
equipment, removals of AT&T 4Es from the Long Lines network as more
advanced DMS and 5Es have taken over, etc.
He was NEVER one who was trying to "steal" from the phone company nor
was he ever one to want to cause damage to the network. He was just
someone who through his keen audio abilities, more keen than most due
to his blindness, was able to determine "how" the phone network
actually worked, back in the analog days of Crossbar and SXS, inband
audio signaling of MF tones and various single frequency supervisory
tones, etc.
Even in his later years after having left Mountain Bell, which was
BEFORE the 1984 divestiture -- I don't think he worked for them as
"US West" -- he would find things not working properly in translations
and such, and try to report these errors to the right people at
US West/Qwest, Sprint, MCI, AT&T, etc.
He apparantly died of a heart attack in his aparatment, sometime
between Friday 3-August and Tuesday 7-August. I tried calling him
several times on Friday and Saturday 03/04 August, but all I would get
was his voicemail. I did leave a message, but he never called back. If
you call his voice- mail today, as of Sunday morning, it says "Mailbox
for...." (in the generic female voice), "Joybubbles" (in his own
voice), "is full" (back to the generic female voice).
I know that he was eccentric in his own ways, and would go into his
own form of "hibernation" every so often. Sometimes, it might be weeks
before I'd have a chance to talk to him. But we usually had at least
one or two phone calls a month.
The last time I actually spoke with him on the phone was on the night
of Wednesday 01-August-2007, after the bridge in the Minneapolis/
St.Paul area had collapsed. I called him up and when he answered, I
told him how glad I was to have gotten him on the phone, that he
hadn't been out doing errands with the handicapped/senior's van
possibly crossing the bridge at the moment it collapsed. He told me
that the handicapped/senior's van service did sometimes cross that
bridge! He hadn't had the radio on at the moment, so he hadn't yet
heard about the bridge collapse, but he would be hearing about it all
the next day when listening to the news.
We had another interest in common as well, that being radio
broadcasting and nostalgia. I remember that he frequently told me
of an episode of CBS Radio's "SUSPENSE" from 1960 that he never heard
the end of, because he was in the car with his parents, and they
were driving out of town, and eventually drove out of range of that
particular CBS Radio affiliate. 40 years later, he heard the episode
in full, all the way to the conclusion, when I played him a tape I
found that I had of that episode, playing it over the phone for him.
He was 58.
Some discussion on his death can be found at:
http://www.binrev.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=33133
and also at:
http://lists.ckts.info/pipermail/voip/2007-August/005176.html
There is a Wikipedia page for him:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joybubbles
which does go into some of his many eccentricities...
It also mentions that he died on Tuesday 7 August 2007, but I think
he might have died a few days earlier, or else maybe he had an initial
heart attack the weekend just before?
They say things come in "threes" --
First there was the death of Mike Ravis of Chicago/Las Vegas, back
in May, of pancreatic cancer...
then last month, Stan Cline of Chattanooga/Atlanta -- he was the
Cellular guru...
and now Joe "Joybubbles/The Whistler" Engressia.
On another matter, someone has taken over the Usenet comp.dcom.telecom
aspect of Pat Townson's Telecom Digest, about a week ago. But there
are only about three posts made, as of last weekend. I assume that
Townson is still in a nursing home, following his stroke from four
weeks ago.
Mark J. Cuccia
markjcuccia@yahoo.com
Lafayette LA, formerly of New Orleans LA, pre-Katrina
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