Imagine a couple in their 80s, stranded in the Eugene airport alone with no accessible cell phone at midnight and no one available to help after an exhausting 17 hours of flight from Budapest, Hungary, after the elderly man had been released after five days in a Hungarian hospital.

Six telephones nearby that don’t work without a telephone card and nary a phone that will accept a coin. What does the couple do?

Wait and watch and hope for a taxi.

Just as the couple is about to collapse from exhaustion, a taxi arrives after an hour.

How can this happen in the community of Eugene?

How can our phone company be so misguided and greedy?

I thought we had a publicly responsible state utility commission.

Jerry Copeland

Florence